World No. 1 and US Open champion Iga Swiatek speaks to CNN’s Richard Quest
SILVER SPRING, United States — In his last five meetings with World No. 1 Svetlana Kuznetsova, her father asked for one thing on a Saturday morning before the tournament started: a “little bit of peace and quiet.”
Iga Ivanova
Ivanova gave the tennis star a taste of what has become her trademark — the quiet.
When he walked into the family home, Ivanova’s mother, Svetlana, was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table sipping tea and eating a piece of toast. Ivanova’s father, Aleksander, was in another room somewhere, sitting on the floor with friends.
“He came to me and said, ‘We’re going to have a quiet one for you, OK?’
“And I went in my room and closed the door and started playing a track of my heart.”
It’s a game that Ivanova describes as “the ultimate test” in terms of mental strength.
Like Kuznetsova, a 17-time Grand Slam winner, she has had her share of troubles in the past couple of year since winning the U.S. Open title last September for her second Grand Slam.
And while Ivanova’s first Grand Slam triumph came against a tough American foe, it was all the more impressive considering the loss of her mother to cancer a year before.
In April, Ivanova said her mother has been “trying to get stronger as we are,” though the family has since been preparing for her mother’s death at the end of the week.
“I’m proud of her for playing in this tournament. She has great talent and she is very courageous, but I think the toughest thing for us has been to get through it,” said Kuznetsova, who defeated Ivanova in the 2005 quarterfinals.
Ivanova, a two-time Grand Slam champion competing in her first-ever major, said on Sunday that “there are people with mental strength they don
