Kuznetsova talks chemistry, Radwanska relives Rio travel nightmare

Svetlana Kuznetsova spent some time with the media today in Cincinnati, and talked about what she has learned, over her long career, about building a player support team. She said that for the first six months of this season, she had no fitness coach, "so I did it myself, and I did it differently." The Russian star said that it's quite difficult to find a coach and a fitness coach with whom a player has just the right chemistry.

In the past, she noted, she has announced additions to her team, and then regretted that she hadn't held off on making the announcements. She went on to day that, at her age, there wasn't a lot she was going to change, even if a coach or a fitness coach asked her to, and she emphasized that these team relationships have to be collaborative in order to work.

The two-time major winner talked about her childhood as the daughter of two professional athletes. She trained in a facility that she described as being "like an army." Despite being very young, she trained twice a day just because she saw everyone else doing it.

Also chatting with the media was Aga Radwanska, who was able to look at her trip from hell to Rio with some humor. Radwanska had to go from Montreal to New York, from one New York airport to another, to Portugal, and then to Rio. This circuitous route also included multiple delays. She was unable to say how many miles she had traveled, but she did say that "They should give me gold status for every airline."

And as if that weren't enough, the Polish star just happened to board the bus that had its windows shattered by some sort of attack that was never fully explained. Radwanska said that when she arrived, no one could tell her how to get to her practice court, and that the food she was given left a good deal to be desired. And after all that, she went out in the first round of play. She added that she had no rest between her drawn-out journey and the commencement of play, and hasn't really had any rest since.