Kanepi Vows to Make Most of Her Late Prime
Kaia Kanepi says she is pleased with her performance in a year that started so unpromisingly.
"I had problems with both Achilles tendons from April on, they hurt, disrupted practice," she told ETV.
Although her ranking at the start of the year was a career-high 16th, the injury was reflected in her matches as well, with loss after loss, and she was sidelined from Wimbledon to the US Open.
Then she seemed to gain in strength, upsetting the world's top seed, Caroline Wozniacki. She hasn't had any notable Grand Slam runs, and is just coming off a loss in the finals of the Kremlin Cup, where she lost to Slovak Dominika Cibulkova.
Kanepi says each loss is a lesson, but while on the court she doesn't sense what round she is in.
Known for frequently switching coaches, she is currently under Silver Karjus, an Estonian who was previouosly an acquaintance of hers. Kanepi says she hasn't developed a good rapport with many of the foreign coaches.
She brushed aside questions about next year or even more distant questions about retirement (she is 26), saying: "I will give my best, want to continue developing and get many good wins, but I can't promise a definite ranking for the end of next year."
Kristopher Rikken