ROGERS CUP PRESENTED BY NATIONAL BANK
Date: 2008-07-31

ROGERS CUP PRESENTED BY NATIONAL BANK

July 31, 2008

Dinara Safina
MONTREAL, QUEBEC
D. SAFINA/P. Schnyder
6-2, 6-2

The Moderator Questions, please.

Question Are you getting tired of winning?
Dinara Safina: You never can get tired of winning (smiling).
After what you have to go through sometimes in the periods of the year, you know, this is just - I don't know - kind of paying off like the patience that you have or just like some disappointing losses. So you really just enjoying those moments.

Question Are you playing now the same way you were leading up to the French and through the French? Do you feel the same way?
Dinara Safina: I think now I'm a little bit more aggressive, much more believing in my shots and going for them much more.
I think I'm more aggressive on the court.

Question Can you talk a bit about your own desire to make it right to the very top of the game, your goals.
Dinara Safina: You cannot really plan the goals, you know, 'cause everything can happen. But I would say I would just want to be healthy, that's the most important, and giving a hundred percent every day, day to day. Only God knows how far you can get.
In this life, nothing you can plan. It's life. So I just want to be healthy, giving hundred percent day to day and step by step.

Question How would you describe the state of the women's game right now?
Dinara Safina: I don't know how to describe.

Question Like the competitiveness of it, I guess.
Dinara Safina: I think now it's very close. I would say like top 10, everyone is very close to each other. So I think it's like there is lots of competition because many girls, like top five, everyone can get to the No. 1. So everyone is trying to push more and more.
So maybe more tension, I don't know.

Question If everyone can get there, what would you say to you is the number one quality that you need to have in order to become No. 1?
Dinara Safina: You have been to be the strongest. You have to be the best. You have to have the same that they have but better.

Question Could you have been playing like this two years ago, three years ago? Do you sort of kick yourself now and say, I could have done this sooner?
Dinara Safina: Of course I could have done. But I didn't had the right people next to me.

Question And who are the changes now that have helped you?
Dinara Safina: My coaches. My tennis coach, fitness coach are with me. They change me, I would say.

Question More disciplined now?
Dinara Safina: Disciplined? I was not a party girl. I don't smoke. I don't drink alcohol. What do you mean with this?
On the court I was always giving a hundred percent. This has nothing to do. But to give this hundred percent in the right way. I was still giving a hundred percent. That's why I had some results. But maybe they were not so specific. That's why I was so up and down. Like here I play okay, I would have like two months not so good. But when it's like specific, day to day, they work, they think how to get me better. That's why I think everything comes together.

Question Are you enjoying working harder, working this way?
Dinara Safina: Of course I enjoy because at the moment tennis for me is the first thing. I really like to do this and I enjoy. Especially when you have the results, then of course you go on court, even it's practice, and you trying to be even more and more perfectionist, like more and more hard on yourself, like you don't allow yourself, like, to try to give up. Like you always want to do even better.

Question Do you know very well Kuznetsova?
Dinara Safina: Of course.

Question You played very often?
Dinara Safina: Of course.

Question What's your record?
Dinara Safina: I don't know. Check with the WTA. I don't remember.

Question Of all the press conferences you've done in your life, what's the percentage do you get asked a question about your brother?
Dinara Safina: Every day.

Question Never a press conference you don't get asked about him?
Dinara Safina: No. Most is like, Did you get a message from him?

Question Every single press conference?
Dinara Safina: Not every single. Either they ask, How is your brother? Did you get a message from him? And what did he say? That's all.