Kristina Mladenovic's column: The challenge of grass, Kvitova's return and tennis' baby boom

Kristina Mladenovic 12:47 02/07/2017
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  • LONDON, GREAT BRITAIN — We’re back at Wimbledon, dressed in classy all-whites and ready to go.

    Grass can be tricky to play on but I feel that I’ve always had a good relationship with the surface.

    I love it, I just love the challenge. I’m a positive person and I want to challenge myself and try to play well on every surface and not be that kind of player who thinks ‘okay, this is not my surface, it doesn’t matter, I can give up if it’s not working well’… I’m not like this, I try to be a perfectionist and try to always do better.

    It’s different. Especially this year I could feel that I improved a lot my game overall, from a physical standpoint and tennis-wise and we could really notice that on the hard courts, even more on the clay courts.

    And to switch to grass, it kind of limited the level, because of the surface obviously, points are way shorter, it’s faster, you can’t develop the same intensity, the same spin, the same footwork and running – it’s challenging.

    I try to adjust my game differently because I can find solutions with more aggressive shots, flat shots, slices, a different style. The way I usually play, which involves me using my forehand a lot, maybe heavy rotation spin shots, that’s something I’m not going to do on grass. For example I’m not going to run around a lot of my backhands to play forehands. So it requires an adjustment for me but I’m just happy to try my best to do it.

    PETRA’S BACK

    I got to play Petra Kvitova in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago and I’m so glad she’s back on tour.

    I was horrified to hear what happened to her back in December and of course we all sent her the warmest support ever, because it’s something you don’t wish on anyone, even your worst enemy, and Petra is actually one of the nicest girls on tour.

    She’s a big champion but is also – which is the most important thing – a nice person. What happened was heartbreaking and we were all in doubt about the issue, if she was going to recover well and everything. So when she announced she will be back I was personally very happy about the great news because it’s nice to have a person like her, as a competitor back on court. I was very happy and proud to share the court with her.

    I lost to Petra in Birmingham and she ended up winning the title in just her second tournament back. I wasn’t surprised to see her doing well, especially that her comeback – even if she played the French Open – but her comeback is on her best surface (grass).

    Maybe she’s not in her best physical shape yet because she’s just coming back but you don’t really feel it on grass because it involves short points and it’s her best surface. I knew she could be dangerous, I was expecting a tough match.

    Of course it’s always a bit surprising to see someone do that well so quickly but I’m very happy to see her back playing, it’s very important for the game.

    BABY BOOM

    Victoria Azarenka is also back and I saw her baby boy Leo the other day. Serena Williams also says she wants to return to the tour next year after having her baby, so we’ll have a few more mothers traveling on the circuit which I think is very interesting.

    I still feel young and I’m not planning on having a baby yet. But this is a topic that has actually been bothering me.

    I’m always impressed with athletes who become mothers and come back and play as well as they did before. I never had a baby so I don’t know the process, how it feels afterwards and if it’s difficult to come back or not. They’re saying that it’s not.

    But it’s always a tricky thing for female athletes. It’s nice for those ATP players, they have their wives and kids next to them and they don’t have to think about stopping their careers, they can just keep on going.

    For us at some point we are like, okay, do I go on with my career and then when I’m done, I’ll stop when I’m over 30 and I want to start a family, or do I take a break at age 24, 27, 30 and go have babies? Because tennis isn’t everything. Of course it’s a lot, at the moment it’s all my life, from childhood, through my teenage years, until now, but the sporting career doesn’t last forever, there is life as well, which is probably even more important.

    This is something you have to think about, and of course women have to think about it way more than the men but I also guess it comes with the flow, with the timing, with your situation in life, if you have a partner or not, we will see. Everybody has their different view, on life, on goals, on timing…

    SASHA THE ENTERTAINER

    For now, I’m just going to stick to focusing on Wimbledon. On Monday, Andy Murray will open the action on Centre Court against Alexander ‘Sasha’ Bublik, who is actually a friend of mine.

    This guy is just hilarious. He’s a very funny guy, he’s full of energy, he enjoys life, he’s very friendly, he’s just an up-and-coming player on tour and he’s not afraid to go up to any player and say hello.

    He’s a very close friend of Daria Kasatkina, and I’m friends with her. He lives in St. Petersburg and he was there during that week when I won the tournament (last February) and Daria was there as well so that’s how I met him.

    He’s easy-going and I’m also quite open, a few jokes here and there, we became friends. Now he’s part of the tour as well and I can see he’s doing a great job already, and he’s proving to be a big hit with the ATP who are recording videos with him quite a lot, asking him to play a journalist’s role by interviewing other players on camera. He has a great sense of humour and he can be a great player as well. He’s a character so hopefully he can entertain lots of fans and he has brilliant talent.

    We had a bet before St. Petersburg about me winning the tournament and it happened and here the situation is quite crazy because he thought about leaving London after he lost in the final round of qualifying but then he found out he was a lucky loser.

    To play Andy on Centre Court is something very special, especially here. It’s a huge mountain in front of him but for now he’s excited. I told him not to be too excited, then stuff could be different on court, but hopefully for him he can enjoy it and play some good tennis.

    *This column was done via an interview with Kristina Mladenovic. It has been slightly edited for clarity.

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