US OPEN
Date: 2003-08-24

US OPEN

August 24, 2003

Svetlana Kuznetsova
NEW YORK CITY
The Moderator Questions for Svetlana, please.

Question You are playing with Navratilova. Did you learn something important from her?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, of course I did (smiling). We start to play in January, so we played a lot of matches. Like each tournament help us to get like more closer, like double partner, so we can know each other and understand each other on the court. Of course, I'm learning a lot, for example volleying in the match, come more forward.

Question She give you mental advice?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, of course, of course. She helps me. She talk to me out of court about my singles and doubles, about everything you would talk about about tennis. So I think she helps a lot.

Question She coached you?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Well, she helps me. I have my coach, and my coach also helps me to work. Working like together, her fitness coach, my coach. We are two players. We work all four together and we try to help to each other the best we can.

Question I read you are with Emilio Sanchez. He coach you?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Well, he helps like kind of manager. He's boss of our club, so he's the main person. Sometimes he comes down and he plays with me with other players. He control the situation. Maybe sometimes he could go somewhere, tournaments, Roland Garros, Wimbledon. He comes and he helps us there. Yeah, but he has a lot of work in his office, so he is not able to play a lot and travel a lot with players.

Question Does he travel with other Russian players?
Svetlana Kuznetsova From our club, yeah, he comes. Well, the main time he plays with me, he tries to help me. Yeah, he controls every time. He comes down from his office and he see how club works and stuff.

Question You went there when you were 13, is that right?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, 13, 14, something about it.

Question When you were growing up, before you went there, how many of the players on the tour now did you know, the Russian players?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Who is already playing now?

Question Yes.
Svetlana Kuznetsova Like maybe three of them.

Question Which ones?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Well, I heard about all the players. I was playing with Dinara, with Zvonareva. Actually, when he came, I start to play Juniors, I start to play with that girls. Before I was not so good as they. They were always like on the top. So I didn't know them very much.

Question The ones that you knew were mostly Dinara and Zvonareva?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yes.

Question How do you explain the success of the Russian players on the tour now?
Svetlana Kuznetsova I think because we are so many. We compete between each other. Everyone wants to show that he is better than someone from his country. He wants to show best results. Once one person does good results, second one wants to do better, we want to show better. We are very competitive. Well, we trying to like show best of our country because we love Russia, I think so.

Question It's always positive?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, no. Like we are all friends between each other. As soon as we get to the court, we fight against each other because we want to be better than other people. I think it's because also because of mentality. When you practicing in Russia, it always seems so tough. You can never have like sponsorship. It's very difficult to get into the pro. I think we have a lot of talent in Russia, but we don't -- not all people so lucky to get like someone sponsor you and to get to the top. As soon as you get there, you want to show that you are better than others.

Question How was it possible for you to start in the Pro Tour?
Svetlana Kuznetsova I was lucky. My father, he had chances to pay for me. I never had sponsor. My father, he was paying all the time for me. He's coach in cycle, so he earn some money, so he can pay for me.

Question Do you like your life on the circuit?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, it's nice. Now I think the tour is getting more close, more friendly the people are. I can't say something for sure because I'm only two years on the tour, second year, and I don't know much about it.

Question If this is maybe the tournament for the Russians, do you look at it and say, "Maybe it's not the Americans' tournament"?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Or Belgian (laughter).

Question Certainly not the Americans. Are you a little bit surprised? We're not only missing Venus and Serena, we're missing Monica, we hear that Lindsay is hurt. Is that a little surprising to you?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Well, of course I want to see like Russian players on the top also. Like Myskina, she's 8 now. We are so many, but not many players like in the Top 10. I want to see like more Russians up there. Of course, they're like more Americans now, more Belgian people. So hopefully we will get like higher Russian players.

Question Does it give more hope to everyone else in the draw?
Svetlana Kuznetsova I think so. Because they pull out of the draw, so I think like other players, they have more chances.

Question Serena and Venus were injured, Davenport. Do you think it's dangerous to play tennis at the top for your body?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, well, Lindsay, she's injured I think because she play like a lot of matches. Serena, Venus didn't play. Normally if you see the rankings, they play like in 13 tournaments in a year. But they still have a lot of matches because they're almost all the time in the finals, they're winning. But I think it just preparation. Depend how you prepare for the tournament. If you have good preparation, I don't think you should be getting injured. I know, for example, Kim surprise me. She play so many matches and she's okay. It means she has good preparation, good body. Sometimes you unlucky, you get some knees hurt, like Serena, this stuff. But I think it's just unlucky because I think they have good preparations.

Question How much time do you spend away from the court with Martina? Do you go to dinner, spend much time together?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, yeah, we have like big team. We are like me, her, coach, fitness trainer, our friends. So like six, eight people. As we can, we go to dinner together. Depends of the tournament. Like Grand Slams, we are not staying in the same hotels. For example, after Toronto, I was supposed to play New Haven, but I pulled out just to have a little bit recovery. Martina, she was supposed to play like one exhibition in Long Island. We decided to went with her there as we can practice some doubles and get ready to play US Open. I think like as more as we work as a team, we go to dinner together, we talk to each other, so we play better afterwards. After this, we feel in the court like supporting each other.

Question She said before she always wanted to coach somebody on the tour.
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah. She cannot coach someone now because she's playing. She have to be concentrated about herself. As she can, she tell me the things, what she thinks. Of course, I'm trying to do this. We try to get better day to day.

Question What kind of coach do you think she would be?
Svetlana Kuznetsova She would be great, I think so, yeah (smiling). Some people, for example, like great players, some of them, they cannot be good coaches because, I mean, when you play tennis, you feel it's so easy everything. When some newcomer, he makes some mistake, you think, "Why he do that? Is so easy, just put ball back." There is some of them. But I don't think Martina. I think she be a really good coach. She understand you. She listens to you. She has really a kind heart.

Question When you're on court with Martina, will she ever say little things like, "Maybe you might want to try a different grip on this particular shot, play this shot instead of that one"?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yes, sure.

Question How often does that happen?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Depends. Of course, during the match she doesn't tell me something like, "Change the grip of your racquet," because otherwise I don't put the ball inside with different grip.

Question But later, afterwards?
Svetlana Kuznetsova As more we play together, more we understand each other, and more I know things what I have to do. In the start, she couldn't tell me a lot of things what I have to do because we didn't have so much confident between each other. Like she doesn't know what to tell me because she doesn't know me well. Afterwards, now for example, she can tell me whatever she thinks. After we sit and we talk, I think, "Look, I feel this and that." She tells me what I better do.

Question Do you find yourself on court watching Martina do certain things and then trying to do the same thing that she's doing?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, sometimes, because I like her volleying so much. Sometimes I try to do the same shot. Sometimes it's a little complicated because her volley is so good.

Question In a way, you're getting coached by her without her saying anything, just by watching her?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah. Well, you watch it all the players. You see like, "This shot I like, maybe I should try this." In my game, I have to do more of that stuff, more coming forward, for example, as Martina does. Just learn from it.

Question Do you ever tell her what to do?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Well, of course, definitely sometimes because when you play on the court and when someone looking from the side, you know much better. From the side, you see more things when you're playing. I tell her my opinion. If she likes it, she does. She say, "Yeah, it was good call."

Question How did you team up?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Last year I played doubles with Arantxa. We played once against Martina and Serena in Japan. After this match, I think Martina telled Arantxa if she will quit tennis or whatever, she would like to play sometimes with me. She get to play doubles with Tulyaganova. They were going to play this year to try. Tulyaganova, before Australian Open, she said she was injured, she will not be able to play doubles, singles, in Australian Open. So Martina called to Emilio. Emilio, once I was in the office of him, he said, "Look, I have Martina on the phone. She wants to play doubles with you." I was like, "Oh. You talk to her. My English is not good to talk to her on the phone." "You playing doubles." I say, "Okay." So I was just playing Australian Open because we missed the deadline of other tournaments. She helped me to get wildcard to Gold Coast. I played Gold Coast with her. She played Sydney with Stevenson. We played Australian Open. We team good, so we won Gold Coast. We start to play these tournaments. Finally, Tulyaganova, she was playing Australian Open, she was playing singles, doubles and mixed.

Question When you played with Martina the first time, were you nervous, not wanting to do something stupid?
Svetlana Kuznetsova With her or against her?

Question With her.
Svetlana Kuznetsova Well, I played with Arantxa last year. When I played first time with Arantxa, I was so nervous. When I played with Martina, I was not so much, but I was still nervous because I didn't know like what's going to happen out there. Maybe she'll kill me because I miss some volley or whatever. When we start playing, I was just, "Concentrate, try to do the best thing you can." We did well.

Question When you're on the court, is it all business, all serious? Does she ever make you laugh during the middle of a match?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Martina?

Question Yes.
Svetlana Kuznetsova She laughs all the time. All the time something happens, it's the funniest thing. Usually I trying to stay concentrate and don't laugh. But what happened in Toronto, I just couldn't stop without laughing. We were laughing all four for like half an hour. The phone, they keep ringing, ringing and ringing. One moment she said, "Are we not important for you so you can turn off?" The phone, it's keep ringing. She goes, "Do you know what does mean vibrating on the phone?" I couldn't stop. Everyone was laughing.

Question Is it important for Russian girls to play a semifinal Fed Cup?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Yeah, of course, definitely.

Question For everybody?
Svetlana Kuznetsova Everyone wants to play Fed Cup. Everyone wants to play for our country and show our best. But they take us by ranking. If you really want to play Fed Cup, you want to be in the team, you have to get higher than others in the ranking. They take first two girls to play in singles. But as happen, they play Slovenia, they play all four each match. They didn't have so many problems against Slovenia. I don't know what's going to happen against France.

Question Do you think Martina was disappointed that she was not selected for the US Fed Cup?
Svetlana Kuznetsova I never talk to her about this. I don't know.

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