One of the things that sticks out when covering tournaments is how local media of each country vary widely in the type of questions they pose to the players.
I’ve seen Spaniards ask very technical questions to their players and coaches, “We’ve noticed you now move your right foot that way when you’re hitting the forehand, when did you start doing that?”, the Brits often get personal, “So has your wife forgiven you for that thing you did?”.
Here in China they get creative.
Agnieszka Radwanska, renowned for her finesse and ability to frustrate her opponents with her variety and deft touch, was told by a Chinese reporter on Tuesday that her style is like Tai Chi – it looks soft but has a killer punch to it that knocks out her rivals.
While it took Radwanska a while to figure out what he was saying, and required me to actually demonstrate what I thought Tai Chi was in the middle of the press conference room (no video of that available thankfully), eventually the Polish world No4 gave him an answer.
“Wow. Maybe. If somebody is comparing me to this kind of style, I think it’s good. Those kind of things (martial arts) I think there is always – I think the perfect word is ‘perfection’. If you’re comparing me to those kind of things, this is a good comparison,” said Radwanska.
It’s actually a spot on analogy and one we should use more often to describe Radwanska’s style.
Meanwhile, Olympic champion Monica Puig, who lost early but still stuck around before heading to Beijing for next week’s tournament, spoke about the aftermath of winning the singles gold medal in Rio and how her life has been a bit of a whirlwind ever since.
I asked her if she was particularly surprised by any of the people who reached out and congratulated her for her Olympic triumph. The Puerto Rican said: “I did see a Sports Illustrated article, Mike Tyson. He didn’t even know who won the boxing gold medal, but he knew who won the women’s singles gold medal. I said ‘No way’.
“He’s a tennis fan because his daughter plays tennis. He’s following tennis. I was like ‘What? This is crazy’.
“Even JLo, Marc Anthony, all these people. I was reading all the tweets going ‘wow, this feels so cool’.
“I think the ones that were most important to me were my family and everybody who has been with me during my climb up. It was nice to celebrate with them because everybody was crying with me, so it was great.”