You’ve got to love Russia. Okay, so you don’t have' to love the late Joe Stalin, or the late, bad old Soviet Union, or the present Russian dope-and-prostitution mobs, or even the current president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
But their tennis players? Can you show me a more diverse, interesting and original crew - at every level, from style-of-play to style-of-hair? In comparison, the Spanish Armada or French Connection are about as diverse and intriguing a bunch as U.S. Congressmen.
So it is with particular pleasure that we announce the resurrection of Svetlana Kuznetsova, former U.S. Open champ - and yet another one-off Russian character. The originality begins with her corporeal being.
If you didn’t know The Kuze was a pro tennis player, you might think she was an understudy to one of those 80 year-old crones in Moscow - the ones who sweep the subway stations with a straw brooms. All she lacks is the babushka.
The word that comes to mind when you contemplate Kuznetsova is “dumpy.” Sure that's cruel, but there’s a larger, important truth being served by putting it that way. This woman is extraordinarily – almost improbably - gifted. Which would you take, talent or beauty?
I don’t know about you, but I can watch Kuznetsova all day. She’s got this really cool, crab-like thing going, with her legs serving as the equivalent of claws. They’re formidable and forbidding tools, and they contrast sharply with those slumping shoulders. Her body language is right out of the “woe is me” school.
Just a little while ago, The Kuze beat Amelie Mauresmo to make the finals of the NASDAQ 100. Believe it or not, this is only the second time in her career that she’s gotten as far as the semifinals of a Tier 1 or better tournament – the other occasion being the 2004 U.S. Open, which she won, much to the inconvenience of the U.S. press, an outfit that still doesn’t quite know what to make of this woman.
It wasn’t like Mauresmo was off her fetching power game today, either. Kuznetsova just cracked the ball, on either wing, and had Mauresmo playing off her heels for the entire match. As the top seed and World No. 1 said, in a pretty subtle but astute analysis of what makes The Kuze so tough: “She’s very powerful, I mean, with her legs, with her upper body as well. That’s her weapon, obviously. Hitting very hard on both sides.”
I followed up that question in the presser by pointing out that nobody would look at Kuznetsova and think, Now there’s an athletic specimen. . ., so could Mauresmo please enlighten us on how she comes to be such a good player?
Mauresmo said:
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”First of all, I think she has lost some weight since a few months (ago), you can see that she is very powerful. I mean, I don’t know how to explain it. When she’s placed and she’s going to hit the ball, all the power coming from the foot (legs?) is going to the racquet, you can see that everything is standing right there and is very strong. I mean I don’t know how to really explain that. . .”
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That’s a pretty good try, in a language not your own, but I got a little more out of Amelie,
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”She’s quick. She’s quick. I think she’s pretty quick, yeah. Pretty good footwork and she’s pretty quick. She’s practiced in Spain (Kuznetsova trains at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona), so all the footwork is there.”
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So there you have it. This thing about footwork and Spain may be easy to dismiss, but consider this: Kuznetsova isn't especially fast, but she's a player who benefits more than most from being set properly and comfortably for her next shot. Take away that quickness (as opposed to speed) and what have you got?
Yeah, but I know what you're thinking: So where’s The Kuze been for the past 18 months? The answer to that is somewhat complicated, and she got into it in her post-match presser. Here it is, at least partially, in Kuznetsova’s own words:
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". . .[when) you're like 19, you win US Open, and you don't win anything and you have so much pressure. I was one day reading interview of Marat (Safin), and he said the same thing. When he won the Open, he was not ready for it. The same did I.
“Like, yeah, I played good. I was Top 12, Top 10, and then suddenly everything comes and you play so good and then you win, and then everybody expects more. You play so many tournaments in a row and you cannot, you just don't have energy. Then suddenly you lose your confidence, and this is where it breaks.
“You cannot go, you cannot lift your head up, and you lose confidence. I start to get injuries and I was not that ready to handle this pressure. I didn't work with any psychologist. I was just on my own. I had many people telling me different opinions. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know who's part I have to take.
“The end of 2005, I just took my time. I just decided, you know, I have to change, I cannot have this match anymore in my head. I just have to go somewhere. I took very important decisions for me outside the court.”
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Kuznetsova declined to get more specific about these “important decisions” because they were personal, although she did say later that some of them had to do with her tennis game as well as her personal life.
Everything completely change from night to day more or less. Yeah, it's about everything. It's about training, where I have to train. It's about my private life. It's about things out of the court. It's about things where I have to live, where I have to stay. It's about everything.
“Just, you know, just my thing. I just don't want to go out and tell it to everybody. But, I mean, I had really important decision for myself.”
I didn’t get the impression that she was talking about some kind of conversion experience of some kind her. A lot of it, she said, had to do with why, and for whom, she was playing – an understandable monologue, given that her family are cycling champs of such accomplishment that they’re the contemporary equivalent of Russian royalty.
This would make The Kuze a great candidate for that not-so-exclusive, “I just want to please my daddy (or mommy)” club. And you know how often tackling that bugaboo has led to seminal changes in someone's life.
Whatever fork in the road The Kuze faced and took, it’s great to have her back. I’m hoping to get back to her saga in another post after the final.