Player of the week: Svetlana Kuznetsova

Since she finished #2 in 2007, former US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova has been showing some lack of regularity and consistency. But with the beggining of the clay season, it seems that she has found her best tennis back and this week in Stuttgart she has captured her 10th WTA title, the first one in the last 20 months (since New Haven in August 2007).


At the beggining of the tournament, it seemed the same story for Kuznetsova, as she needed three sets to overcome Andrea Petkovic and Na Li in the 1st and 2nd round respectively. But as she progressed to the final rounds, she started to feel more confident and her game become more solid. She just dropped 5 games to Gisela Dulko in the quarter-final and 6 games to 2nd seed and WTA #3 Elena Dementieva in the semifinal. But the final was going to test if the performance of Kuznetsova was just a couple of good matches or if she had definitively recovered her best tennis, as she was facing WTA #1 Dinara Safina. And again Kuznetsova showed a very solid tennis and mentality and defeated Safina 6/4 6/3.


From now on, Svetlana must be considered again a serious contender for the big titles, especially on red clay, as the Grand Slam at Roland Garros in a few weeks.