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CHINA OPEN

October 2, 2011

Vera Zvonareva

BEIJING, CHINA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. (Through translation.) Three questions: First one: Last week in the Tokyo finals, what was happening? It's the third time you lost to Agnieszka Radwanska. Second question: In China Open last year you were the runner up. In the Olympics you also won the medal. You must have a lot of good memories. What's your opinion about the new stadium? And the third one: Tell us something about your cooperation with your coach.
VERA ZVONAREVA: A lot of questions. (Smiling.) Well, first one: Last week was a great week for me in Tokyo. I made it to the finals. It was a great experience for me. I played some good tennis. Unfortunately, in the final I couldn't do my best. I think I was maybe a little bit tired or something. Wasn't my day.
It happens to everybody. I felt like I could have played much better, but just couldn't really execute my game. Just, you know, one of those bad days. Nothing wrong about it. I have energy and I have courage to go back on the court and practice more so it doesn't happen next time.
I played against Aga a few times this year. Won once; lost three. But it's okay. You know, I know what I have to do, and hopefully next time I can do a little bit better and I can play some good tennis and maybe next time I can beat her. We will see.
Second question regarding China Open, you know, I really like China and I really like being in Beijing here. I really like playing here. I think when I enjoy this atmosphere I can produce some good tennis. Results talk for themselves. I won a bronze medal here, and it is something that was very important for me. It's something that encourages me every time I come back here.
I have those great memories, and I think I took that momentum and took it into the final last year. I played some great tennis last year. I have great memories. I'm really looking forward for this year. Really looking forward to play against tough, tough players here, because it's a great field of players.
You know, I know I have a lot of fans here, and I'm excited about it. I always get a lot of support, and it's very important for me. I will try to do my best this year again.
Regarding the new stadium, I actually heard a lot about it, but I just arrived and didn't get the chance to see it. But I heard it's a huge stadium, very nice, so I will go out there tomorrow and I will try to practice in it a little bit.
The third question about my coach, I think we have been working together since probably clay court season. I have another Russian coach who is helping me in Moscow, in Russia, so I have pretty much two people that work with me.
You know, I enjoy the work that we do, because he can play with me on the court and then he can give my some advices, but I think I'm experienced and mature enough and I have my own view on my game. But we have similar view, and it makes the work easier.
I also have another person, like I said, when I'm in Moscow who can help me out as well. I can get two different opinions, which is nice, and then I can make my choices when I go on the court. I like the team that I have.
I have other people in my team: I have a physio; I have a fitness trainer. All those people, they work for me. We try to work the best we can to help me to play the best I can.

Q. Seems that after the US Open, a lot of players, they're tired and tend to wind down mentally. You played some of your strongest tennis last year here, last week in Tokyo. How do you stay so motivated and physically still ready for the end of the season?
VERA ZVONAREVA: I don't know. You know, it's a tough question. But like I said, I think I'm experienced and I think I'm mature. I make my plans ahead of the season, and I try to listen to my body all the time. I learn from it, and I learned that each player is different. You have to find the key to yourself.
So I know when I need to stop myself a little bit, and I know when I need to push myself a little bit. I'm not saying I'm always making the right choices, but if I make right choice eight times out of ten, it is a pretty good record.
I think that's what helps me to stay consistent throughout the whole season. That's what we are also trying to work with my coach a lot on, trying to find the right balance between practicing enough but not doing too much.
Also, I brought a physio in my team that's been traveling with me on consistent basis, and it helps a lot because he knows my body and he knows me. He helps for me to stay in a good shape and to overcome all the little injuries that I might have throughout all the season.
And I think that hard work and the right planning in advance and right thinking helps, yeah, helps to stay very consistent at the high level.

Q. What happened in women's tennis this year is extremely interesting. We have four different Grand Slam champions, but none of them can do well, as well, after that. Li Na was rousted first round of US Open, and same here. Petra and Samantha didn't do well after grabbing their first Grand Slam titles. How do you take such a situation? Do you take it as an opportunity or challenge?
VERA ZVONAREVA: Um, well, first of all, I think it's a wrong perception that they're not doing so well. I think if you look at their results, they're still pretty good. Maybe they can have couple bad losses, but they're still good.
If you look at their results previous year, they played a lot of maybe semifinals, finals as well, but they also had couple losses in the first or second rounds. It happens, and it happens to everybody.
But it's just people around that saw them winning the Grand Slam expect them to win every week. Unfortunately, it's not happening all the time, because I think the level of the game is very high and there are a lot of players that can play very good tennis.
In order to win all the time, you have to play your best tennis all the time. We're all human beings. It's very tough to stay that consistent throughout 10 months out of 12. So you will have ups and downs.
Plus, if you have a lot of pressure coming from outside, from people putting pressure on you after you win a Grand Slam, they expect you to win all the time. Besides that you have to play very well because you have tough opponents, you also have to stay very strong in your head because you have all those people that put pressure on you.
It is very difficult to manage both very well. That's something that they learn after they win the Grand Slam, because it is something you cannot learn before you win it. You can expect something like this and you can sort of know that this may happen, but until you experience it yourself, you will never know how to act in that situation.
So it takes some time to learn how to act after you achieve something big like that, especially when you have other players out there that are playing very, very strong. Because tennis, women's tennis grew a lot over the past few years. Previous years maybe you didn't have as much competition, let's say, outside of top 20. Top 10 players, they were the level of their game was much higher.
And even maybe after winning a Grand Slam they were a little bit fragile mentally, they were still managing to win because they were much better, the level of their game was much better.
Now, if you're a little bit tired mentally, not necessarily just from tennis, but also from that pressure that comes from people, you're a little bit fragile, you cannot just go out there and beat your opponents your game. You need to stay mentally fresh as well.
That's why it is very difficult. I think they're still very good players and they will win much more matches. It's just not coming right away because they don't know -- they haven't learned it from their experience before. They will do it. There is nothing wrong about it.

Q. How did you take the situation that none of them can reign? Do you take it as an opportunity or a challenge?
VERA ZVONAREVA: I think players just try to play. They all believe in themselves more maybe than before. Before maybe players didn't believe in themselves that much because they thought the level of game is so different between top 10 players and players behind.
Now any players in top 50 or top 100 believes they can come and win any tournament. I think that's great, because it creates a great competition and it creates a lot of let's say opportunities for everybody. You never know who's going to win. That's what makes it interesting.
I think everyone who's sitting here doesn't know -- cannot give just one name or two names and tell, Okay, those are people who are going to be winners. I think if everyone names someone, we will hear about 10, 20 names, because the competitiveness of women's tennis is very high. I think it's very great for our sport.

Q. Since it's almost the end of the season, do you think you have the confidence of making it to Doha?
VERA ZVONAREVA: Um, you mean Istanbul this year?

Q. Yeah.
VERA ZVONAREVA: You know, I don't know yet. I haven't qualified yet. Of course it is one of my goals to get in there, but I know that I need to stay in this moment right now. I know I need to play one match at a time and not think too much ahead of myself.
If I do that, then I will not be able to perform my best on this particular day. So I will just concentrate on one match at a time, and we will see where it's going to take me. If I play good enough, I will qualify. Well, if not, then not.
But the most important for myself is to concentrate on just one match at a time, and we will see what's going to happen after.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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