Thursday, June 25, 2009

Wimbledon--what they said

"I think the best thing about this sport is you can choose your own destiny."
Venus Williams

"So I'm getting very bored in the afternoons after my matches and practices. I want to go shopping and see London. Not tourism though, because you get tired. I need just two, three hours to spend some cash."
Svetlana Kuznetsova

"...that's kind of the thing about tennis, that you can have such a good preparation, great three, four weeks of great results, great performances, and then you have that one day where it's just -- it's not quite there."
Elena Baltacha

So you don't try to change your game or the way you play or anything like that?
"No. I should not change."
Won't see any slice, dropshots?
"I can do this if I need to. But if I'm not pushed to do this, why to do it?"
Dinara Safina

But on grass do you think it's any more of an advantage to be short sometimes?
"It's good to--it's an advantage to be short when you return, and on serves you have to grow a little bit. Let's put it that way."
Svetlana Kuznetsova

"...I think everyone goes really crazy over the one week. I think the public and everyone kind of expects someone to do so fantastic, otherwise you're deemed as a failure."
Elena Baltacha, on the British press and public's Wimbledon expectations

"...once I got to the top position, it was sort of --you know, it had some setbacks. It was a little bit hard for me to accept it. I just thought it's always going to be up the hill and it's always going to be better and better. But it's not always the case."
Ana Ivanovic

What have you been up to since Paris?
"You know, party every day until 6:00 in the morning and then sleep during the day, and now I play these two days."
Svetlana Kuznetsova, at her cheeky best


And then there are the idiotic things they (the sports press) said. I'm glad that more and more players are refusing to answer personal and other inappropriate questions asked at their press conferences, as a couple of players did yesterday. Today, the inane questions included:

Do you feel as well as athleticism and talent and dedication, there's an important place for grace and beauty and femininity in the sport?

Larry Scott gave his final press conference this morning. You were the one current player he singled out for having a leadership role, being on the Player Council for the whole time he's been in charge of the WTA Tour. Not only have you done that, but you've actually been proactive, telling him that you wanted to be involved in gender equality. What interests you, and why are you doing that? Do you feel responsible, or are you just interested in that stuff?

But what do you expect?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kuzzy is just too adorkable!

btw did you see an interview where she recounts being mistaken for a boy when she was at a sports match (when she was little) so she made up a name called "nick" because she was too embarrased to admit she was a girl? (on youtube)

Dani

Diane said...

No, I missed that.

I feel as though I have watched her grow up; she seems so much more comfortable with herself than she used to be.