April 2, 2008
Vera Zvonareva Interview after quarterfinal win over Dinara Safina 75, 64
An interview with: VERA ZVONAREVA
Miami
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. You've had a couple good matches with Jelena. Could you talk about especially the final in Auckland and how that went for you?
VERA ZVONAREVA: Yeah, I had I think a couple. We had tough matches. I remember the final. It was it was a good final. Good fight. She's obviously a great player. She's always fights. She stays in the matches.
You know, it's very difficult to play against her, but it's another day tomorrow, and we'll see. You know, I'm going to go out there and going to try my best, gonna find a way to, you know, to try to win that match tomorrow.
Q. Talk about tonight's match, how you felt.
VERA ZVONAREVA: It's always tough to play against Dinara; she's a great player. She's quite tall, you know. She has a good serve. So I had to hang in there, had to fight for every point, and I think I did it well and I was able to win key points. I'm really happy about that.
Q. Were you frustrated that you couldn't close her out when you had a lead and she kind of kept coming back into the match?
VERA ZVONAREVA: She's a fighter, you know. When I was coming on the court today I knew it was going to be a fight and it's not going to be easy.
So I was just trying to stay out there, you know, and I had a couple match points on her serve. But she did well.
You know, she had good serves and she stayed in the match, so I just had to go there and fight for every point no matter what was the score.
I think I did it well. So that made a difference.
Q. You had quite a few injury interruptions to your season last year. How are things going this year with fitness and health in general?
VERA ZVONAREVA: Yeah, it's been pretty good, pretty good for me.
I made it to the finals earlier this year. I had to pull out because I sprained my ankle, so I took a few weeks off. I think I've been doing pretty good. I've been playing good matches, so I'm feeling good. We'll see what happens later, but so far so good.
Q. Even though you've reached the semis of this, do you feel all eyes will be on Serena Williams for the rest of the way, and do you like sort of playing under the radar like that?
VERA ZVONAREVA: I don't know you know, I'm just thinking about right now. I just finished my match, but obviously I'm going to think about tomorrow's match. I don't really think about I think the other semifinal at the moment.
But Serena is obviously great, great player. She won many Grand Slams, and of course she deserves attention. But I'm just tomorrow I have I have another match of my own, so I have to concentrate on that.
Q. Is it a strange feeling for you being such a highranked player but sort of in the middle of the pack in your own country, so many of you. Is it odd to think sometimes I rank really high in the sport, but in my own country there's X number of people in front of me?
VERA ZVONAREVA: I'm happy for my country, that we have so many great players. It's a competition between everyone on the tour, not only between us, so...
But of course, sometimes some girls they are really popular and are recognized athletes in their own country, because it's the only one top 20 player maybe in the country.
For us it's a little bit different, you know, to be recognized athlete, tennis player. In Russia you have to be ranked in top 5. It's a little bit little bit different, but, you know, I'm just trying to do my job, trying to go out there and fight, and trying to show good tennis. We'll see what's going to happen.
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