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DUBAI DUTY FREE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS WOMEN

February 18, 2011

Svetlana Kuznetsova

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

S. KUZNETSOVA/A. Radwanska
7-6, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Sveta, well done.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Thank you.

Q. Been a tough week, but you've come through it, haven't you?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Yeah, actually I'm doing better and better day by day, because I was very sick at the start of the week; today is like kind of the best day physically I felt, because other days I was feeling very tired and it was tough to me to go through.
But I made it. I didn't know if I could play. You know, I was in some stage where I get very sick or I get better. So I didn't know. It could go either way. So it was good I tried to do less tennis, less everything of work, and my health get better.
I'm happy I'm getting better.

Q. What was wrong with you?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I guess I had similar thing that Maria has. I guess she get it in the Fed Cup.

Q. Oh, right, with the ears.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Ears, virus, everything. I just couldn't breathe properly. It was something from health, and also I had very difficult last month recovering from Australia, fly to Moscow, cold weather, and then playing Fed Cup indoors and coming here.
It's not too many matches, but emotionally and physically they take out of me a lot.

Q. What part of the plane do you fly in when you do long distance? First or business?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: If I play very good, I do first. (Laughing.) If I play okay, I do business. But I said to myself, I play bad, I go in economy, or maybe I put myself in the luggage.

Q. What did you fly Australia to Moscow?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Business. But I made the present for me. It was not very expensive to upgrade to fly to Australia, so I flew first; then I said I didn't deserve, so I went business back home.

Q. You must be feeling you got a good chance of winning this.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Oh, it's so long. I still have doubles and tomorrow. I don't want to think about winning. When you think about winning, you're losing. You have to think about fighting for every ball, and this is what I am up to.
Because with Agnieszka, it's like opponent which I know if I play good, I have all the chances and possibilities to win. When I start to play good, I start to be happy, I'm playing good, and suddenly she comes back. She never gives it up to you. She always brings all the balls back and you always have to fight for every ball. For.
Me it happened in San Diego against her. I will never forget it. So every time I'm up, I know I have to fight. But with her, it seems like we play game, you know, catch me if you can. I go up 5-3, and she start to play better and I start to play worse, be more tense, more mistakes. Then we're equal or she's up, I start to play better.
So it's strange, but it's nice to play against her because she changes the pace and it's different.

Q. You're fighting for every ball now, aren't you? ?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I'm much better and very pleased, because last year it was disaster.

Q. Is it easy to maintain your concentration throughout the matches?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: No. For me concentration is the hardest thing in the world, yes.

Q. How did you do it?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I try to manage it. I just try to focus, try to do some routines, and it helps. But definitely I cannot expect from myself to be good at every match. Sometimes I do lose concentration. You can see it easily.
But I have to accept it and go through it. This is what only thing you can do.

Q. Have you ever seen a sports psychologist to help you concentrate for a whole match?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I have few (laughter). But actually I know what to do. The thing is the matter of me doing this. Every time I go to psychologist, they say me -- Yeah, yeah, I heard it 22 times, but I don't do it. (Smiling.)
So this is a simple thing. For example, you start to play tennis. You would go to play, I would start play, what's the first thing they tell you to do when you go on the court? They tell you, Look at the ball. It's frustrating, but sometimes even like athletes, they don't look at the ball. It's very simple things which you just have to do all the time consistently. Then you going to be good.
Simply just for example, I did so many mistakes today because I didn't look at the ball. It's the first lesson you learn playing tennis. Everybody should know that.

Q. When you say look at the ball, do you look at the ball right onto the racquet strings?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Yeah, right when you hit it. Do I sound stupid?

Q. No. Except you forget to do it sometimes.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Okay. (Laughter.) It's me, it's how I am. Because when I was young, always the coaches they tell me mom, She's talented, but she's like everywhere, so she's never going to be good.

Q. Obviously this evening's game you had a fair few match points and sort the struggled to convert them again. This was kind of like Schiavone all over again.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Totally different thing. I think it was second or third match point. One she played good I think, and one my ball touched the top of the net, and was third one.

Q. What I was going to say is that on the third one you just decided, right, I'm going to get -- obviously it's the second serve for the first match point, sorry.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Yeah, yeah.

Q. Second serve, and you just decided, Right, I'm going to smack this. So you obviously have it within you to win them. What is it about you, sort of besides the opponent?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: You know, if I would be as I am, I would smack every second serve as hard as I can. Sometimes you see that it goes everywhere in the court. Sometimes I have to tell myself to be patient. That is what good I learn in Spain. They made me patient.
Sometimes I start to hit harder and harder because I have it in me; I have it in my blood; I have it in my power; I have it. So I don't understand why sometimes I don't have to do it. It comes automatically, so you have to control it I have to stop it sometimes.
When I have the ball -- like for example on set ball on the first set, I smacked it and it was good. But sometimes I don't look in the ball, and I smack it to the fence, you know.

Q. Are you coachable? You've had a lot of coaches over the years.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Yeah.

Q. Some players can take everything a coach says on board, and other players -- I can think of one particular Scotsman that doesn't like being coached very much.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Yeah. I don't count myself as uncoachable. I don't. But I'm never going to say I'm easy. Not at all. I am nice, but I am open and straight. This is for example with Olga. Like I like her. I love her. She's great person. And she loves me. But we don't go together because we have the same characters. We like go at maximum.
And Like Elena tells me, Dementieva, after working with her, she goes like, Yeah, I never could tell her what I really think because, you know, like you got to respect people. I say, I do respect her, but I go straight to her and I say whatever I think.
I have to negotiate, I have to talk to person, and I have to like person. Definitely I have to choose person which I'm comfortable with and I have to trust.
First person gets to my team is get tested. This may not be very easy. I do some test, I check out the person, you know. (Smiling.) But I'm always nice to people. I always care about people too much. Sometimes you don't have to do this so much.
I know few girls - I'm not going to tell their names - but they're really uncoachable. Sometimes I say to Sasha, my hitting partner, I'm going to send to you work with them. He goes, No, no, I quit tennis. I don't go work with them.
So, I mean, I don't think I'm too bad, but think you should ask my past coaches or old coaches or whatever.

Q. Well as you say, Olga still thinks the world of you.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Yeah, we do text. She calls me. Sorry, I know we got to go, but this story is -- you know I like to talk, so...
She calls me and say, Sveta, I have to send one girl, she's 13 or 14, to SÃ¡nchez-Casal Academy. What do you think? I say, Okay, where is this girl from? St. Petersburg. I say, Okay. So what do you want?
She say, Well, I want to know, you were in SÃ¡nchez-Casal, and after you work with me. What's similarity? I said, you want me be to be honest? Yeah, of course. I say, Not at all. Nothing similar. So I say, Everything is completely different. You and SÃ¡nchez-Casal is completely opposite.
We started to laugh maybe for ten minutes, both of us, because she knows I am saying from my bottom of my heart. I'm not saying something to please another one, but I going to go and I going to go honest.
This is how I am. If you like me, take me; if you're not, go away. So what I can do?

End of FastScripts

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