Tennis, Daniel Collins, Petra Kvitova discussed on The Tennis Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
And a feeling of what could have been, you know, she did point out that she still pretty early in her tennis playing career. She's only been pro four years. She completed the full course, didn't she of her athletic college scholarship and she was she was the number one college player by the end of the end of her degree. But yeah, she said, she said she was not quite gassed, but you know, told told that she was just a person with heavy periods or told that this was just something she had to manage, et cetera, et cetera and goodness me emotionally that must just be, yeah, all a lot to deal with and she's fascinating on it. And she said that she thought it big just generally a good thing if periods were more talked about talked about more openly and as a result, researched more thoroughly as a factor in athletic conditioning and training methods and all the rest of it. You know, it's an enormous thing that happens to 50% of athletes, 50 horse, only 50% of tennis players, and yeah, as always sort of male is default, isn't it? So CC Caroline cruelty Peres and her brilliant book invisible women rather. Yeah, the male body is treated as default and therefore research into those kinds of areas tends to be underfunded and under spotlighted, not a word, but it's late folks. And she's just really interesting. She's probably one of the most well rounded human beings in tennis. I would say, because she's had a life that wasn't just tennis and being a prodigy and she had to had it difficult at times, I think, in her upbringing, she had to really scrap in order to get her college tennis life and her and she was very determined to get a qualification that wasn't just around tennis as well. And she's got a degree, and she probably will fought her heart out for that, worked hard and made sure she got it because she wanted to make sure she had that as a backup. And that if Dennis doesn't work out, it doesn't matter because I've got this. And I just feel like she's lived life. Beyond tennis and that makes her that much more interesting and open when it comes to conversations like that. Absolutely, and she was asked what was most satisfying for her about this achievement obviously it's not her first Grand Slam semifinal. She's done it here before, but she said it made her think of her childhood and the sacrifices that her father in particular made in order for her to be able to play tennis and you know she said the hours that he would spend on the road just taking it to competitions and practices and she told little story about how you know she used to train before school and one day he couldn't take it because he had a cold and she said, God, at least let me at least hang out for a run. Like I need to do some kind of training, and she said he hopped on his bike while she ran alongside him just so she could get some training in for the day and yeah, it was a lovely little story. So Daniel Collins then through to a second Australian open semifinal. She of course achieved it three years ago. She lost out to Petra kvitova that day. She will face eager scientific who defeated kayaking happy today in a marathon four 6 7 6 6 three three hours and one minute she wrote hashtag tired on the camera. I think that's our tournament motto, isn't it? Thanks for the support, hashtag time. Yeah, exactly. It was an extraordinary match point. If you have the opportunity to watch match point, I highly recommend you do so. The clip of it is doing the rounds. It was just extraordinary defense into attack from ego Schwann tech. It was a point that she had absolutely no right to win. And it kind of summed up the match really in lots of ways and kind of summed up this whole run for her because it's so different to her run to the title at the French Open in 2020 when she just blasted away all before her. She was she was sublime. It was two weeks of absolute perfection for mikashi on taking this run, whether it ends here or goes on, has been very far from that. It has been up and down and that is a big part of the learning process for Shaun tek and she talked about that today she said she said you play your best tennis a couple of times a year. I'm trying to be okay with not playing my best and winning anyway. Yeah, because I think when you have a breakthrough, that's so often what people associate with you for a long time. And I think I probably was guilty of that. I was thinking, well, she found tech. Blasts her way through slams, you know, because we've seen it. She's capable of it, but that might be the best slam she ever plays in terms of level of tennis for a whole week. It's unrealistic to expect her to do that every time she plays a slam. And I think she's coming to terms with that as well. And as you said, she figuring out the process of winning matches when she's not at her best, and she said she's been getting better at finding solutions on court. She's really, she's really taken a lot from the fact that she's won from a set down in the last two matches, something she hasn't got a brilliant record of doing on tour either away from the slams of sort of figuring out matches when she's not playing well. So I think there's quite a lot of satisfaction to take. Obviously you want to play your best. And it's brilliant when everything is going perfectly. But yeah, it's just not going to happen most of the time. So winning like this is absolutely vital. And look, she wasn't. At her best today, 12 double faults, in particular, she really struggled on serve. And she was very close to losing in straight sets. Can epi had her in a second set tiebreak, but just when she needed to, I thought she cut out some of the unforced errors she started extending the point. She won a lot of the long rallies in the second set and in the third set as well. And yeah, it's a really great achievement to fend off someone of Canopy's power when you're not quite playing your best yourself. It was a real mental challenge, I think, for especially on tech out there and yeah, she dealt with it. Really, really well. That's 7 Grand Slam quarterfinals for kaia kanepi without reaching a semifinal, which I think to quote a mat stat from earlier or last year, was it?.