An interview with Svetlana Kuznetsova after losing to Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 1-6, 16-14 in the longest (4 hours 44 minutes) grand slam women’s singles match ever played. Kuznetsova had energy to tweet about it: “hey guys thank u for watching and all the support!i m still able to type u a message and to take positive out of this match today! yeah it hurts but ….what eva doesent kill you….. will do better for u))))”.
Q. Did you try to beat the record of Mahut and Isner?

SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I tried, but apparently didn’t work. She finish it earlier than I thought.

Q. What do you remember of the six match points that you had? Did you think some of them you could have made it?

SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I don’t remember any. I mean, I think she played good on match points. I don’t think I had easy ball any time, she was serving it all the time. It’s hard to say. The match could go either way so many times. I mean, I think it just was really a day of Francesca. We both fighted so hard the whole match, and the important moments she just played better. Read more »

Interview with Justine Henin after losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia 6-4, 7-6 (10) in the third round of the Australian Open.

Q. A bit of a disappointing result. What was the difference between the two of you?

JUSTINE HENIN: Well, of course it’s disappointing to lose like this. She is just been better than me, especially in the important moments. I got some opportunities in the second set to come back, but I never really took the lead in this match. I was really too far. Read more »

Did you know that Svetlana Kuznetsova has a blog? Sorry, but it is in Russian, and she doesn’t update it often. There are only a couple of entries. Here are a couple of tidbits from her blog posts.

She doesn’t like being called Kuzy

“The fans have been asking me if I like being called Kuzy. I used to like it, and had no problem with it before. I don’t get offended but I think I am a little bit older now, no longer Kuzy, and would prefer if people call me Sveta or Svetlana. That’s my request! 

Clarifies who is who in her team:

“To clarify, Andrey Olkhovskiy is not my sparring partner. My sparring partner remains Alexander Krasnorutskiy. Andrey is my other coach. In the future, it is quite likely that I will be working with both Andrey and Larisa.”

The blog is available here (in Russian). (Photo: from Svetlana Kuznetsova’s blog)

Russian PROsport magazine’s August 3rd issue features Svetlana Kuznetsova. The photos have turned out to be quite beautiful. Last December, PROsport also had a great photo session with Vera Zvonareva.

Tennis player Maria Sharapova with an annual income of $22 million tops the list of the 50 powerful Russian celebrities. She is followed by football forward Andrei Arshavin with over $7 million. There are 19 newcomers on the list among whom are Dinara Safina (16th, $4.5 million), and Vera Zvonareva (42nd, $2,4 million). Elena Dementieva was the 19th ($1.9 million) and Svetlana Kuznetsova was 33rd ($3 million). The rankings were estimated based on earnings, media exposure and search terms on Yandex Russian search engine.

Interestingly Maria was also the only Russian ranked at 76th on the Forbes’ 100 Celebrities list 2009. It should be noted that Maria was sidelines for nine months by the shoulder injury.  Despite her absence from the courts, her web rank was 15. Not bad ha?

Read more about Maria’s celebrity power here, and here.

Serbian media are speculating that Novak Djokovic may have already married to his long-time girlfriend Jelena Ristic. Here are some photos of Novak who spotted vacationing with girlfriend Jelena in Portofino, Italy. But vacationing is not the only reason that’s fueling the rumors. It is believed that the couple is set to embark on a month-long journey aboard a luxury Manhattan 60 yacht which Novak was reportedly reserved a year ago. I guess we have to wait and see if he is following the footsteps of Roger Federer and Andy Roddick.

More photos after the cut… Read more »

In an interview with sovsport.ru, Svetlana Kuzentsova, the recent winner of Roland Garros, shares with the Russian readers about her plans on spending her French Open Prize money–1,060,000 Euros.

“I am planning to buy an accommodation in Moscow, I am still renting an apartment. Also, I have promised to myself to buy a good expensive watch. The majority of the money I am going to donate to my church. There the director of orthodox temple is my spiritual father. I try to to be there as often as possible, to think about something personal, something eternal. But I have a very busy schedule. Occasionally, the father himself visits me. … No matter how strange it sounds, I am a very religious person and try to attend church even in other countries.”

I have blogged some time ago about how Svetlana Kuznetsova had felt somewhat left out and offended, when then-President Vladimir Putin didn’t call her to congratulate on her win at the U.S. Open. (Putin had managed to call Maria Sharapova (for her Wimbledon win and Anastasia Myskina for her Roland Garros win the same year). Yesterday, Sveta was able to securing her second grand slam title with a convincing French Open victory 6-4 6-2 against another Russian Dinara Safina. I was curoious to see if she was going to get a call from the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.  Now the wait is over. Sveta got a telegram this time. Better than nothing:-) It says:

“You have confirmed you are world class in the difficult fight for this honour, you demonstrated a strong character and will. Your stunning and emotionally tense playing became a brilliant continuation of the ‘Russian finals’ on the planet’s major tournaments, and proved again the supremacy of our country’s women tennis school.”

Getty Images has a beautiful photo of Sveta’s in front of the Eiffel tower with a trophy celebrating her win. Check it out here.

No. 1 Dinara Safina and No. 7 Svetlana Kuznetsova meet today in the French Open’s women’s final, a matchup of 23-year-old Russians. Here is what they said about each other:

Svetlana Kuznetsova about Dinara Safina (via Sovetski Sport):

“We have a really good relationship with each other. Our tennis rivalry doesn’t allow us to become closer friends. Nevertheless, we talk to each other about various life topics, give each other advice. I have much closer ties with Nadia Petrova. Before her, Likhovtseva was a good friend of mine, when she was on the tour. I know Dinara since we were 12-13. I remember, she was a year younger than me, but would beat me always 6:1, 6:0 - something like that. I had no chance of winning her.  Thus, I was looking at her always differently. After all I was a girl from St. Petersburg. She was a Moscovite. Her mom was one of the chief tennis coaches of the country. Her brother–a superstar. I remember running and shouting after him to get an autograph: “Marat, Marat, give me an autograph, please. I know your sister.” By the way, Dinara’s mom, greatly helped my parents, when they decided to send me into the Spanish academy. Safina was also being trained in Spain at that time. But even then we were first and foremost tennis rivals.”

Dinara Safina about Svetlana Kuznetsova (via RIA Novosti)

“Svetlana is a very open and honest person. She will never do anything behind your back. I think it is a very valuable quality. Whether she is right or wrong, it is another issue, but she will say whatever is on her mind. But there are people who smile at you and then stab your back. I know that Sveta will never do that.”

Sovetski Sport has published an interesting interview conducted at Roland Garros with Shamil Tarpischev, the head of the Russian Tennis Federation.  I have translated some of the interesting points below:

About Maria Sharapova:

“The shoulder pain has gone. But the psychological fear of getting an injury is still there. No plans to talk to her about her Fed Cup participation in 2010. I am sure she would like to concentrate on improving her ranking.”

About Anna Chakvetadze and Maria Kirilenko:

“Both of them are “mind”-players. But in today’s tennis it will not take you far. They need to add power to their game. I am not saying that they have to add  a lot of muscles, but it is a weak area that they need to work on. I can’t force them to do it, they need to understand it themselves.

About Svetlana Kuznetsova:

I was a little bit disappointed that the partnership between Sveta and Olga Morozova didn’t work out. But what can you do, their characters didn’t click. From psychological perspective, Svetlana is quite happy with her recent move to Russia. But she still has some gaps in her technical game, and she needs a coach to address those problems. (Her current coach is Larisa Savchenko, also recommended by Tarischev.)