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ZHUHAI, China – Petra Kvitova concluded a stellar Asian Swing with yet another title, taking home the Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai crown after a 6-4, 6-2. The former World No.2 and Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open winner moved up to No.11 on the WTA rankings, and is eager to make up for lost ground at the start of next season.

WTA Insider caught up with Kvitova after her emphatic win over Svitolina to talk about the Wuhan-Zhuhai double, what it means to find herself on the tennis court, and why she’ll key in on improving her serve and return during the off-season.

WTA Insider: On a scale from 1-10, how tired are you feeling right now?
Kvitova: I don’t think I’m that tired. I just feel my entire body is sore, so I’ll need to take a few days off to get ready for the Fed Cup tie. I’m really looking forward, but it’s a little bit difficult. I’m a little bit tired, but winning always helps me recover faster.

WTA Insider: You managed to win Wuhan and Zhuhai this year, much like Venus Williams in 2015. What is it about these courts that go hand-in-hand for players?
Kvitova: I’m not really sure, but it’s kind of funny that both of us won the same tournaments at the end of the season. I’m not sure, but maybe the courts are a little bit faster for our games. We both play aggressive, and have good serves. I think that pays off for us.

WTA Insider: You talked a lot about finding yourself in our last interview; I’m curious what that means to you. Is it about finding yourself personally, or professionally? You mentioned in press that you felt you’d rediscovered your game.
Kvitova: I think it’s both, personal and tennis things. I’ve always loved to play tennis, but it can get tough when I’m not feeling confident, and not playing as well as I should. These couple of matches that I’ve won in the last couple of weeks have really helped my confidence. I did find myself, and that means I’ve found my game again. I’m not afraid to go for my shots, even if I miss them sometimes. I’m still trying to go for it, serve better, and put pressure on my opponent. That’s something I don’t think I was really doing at the start of the season. Of course, there were other small things also happening in my life, as well. But sometimes it’s just important to go through all of these things to find yourself.

WTA Insider: You’ve also mentioned that potentially not having a coach helped you find yourself. What you’re trying to find yourself – be it your game, or personally – did it help to not have too many extra voices around, and just to focus on you and what you’re thinking and feeling?
Kvitova: Personally, I’m always trying to look at things more positively than negatively. I do have David, who is my fitness coach. He’s traveling a lot with me right now, and he’s helping a lot. He’s not a tennis coach, so I’m doing tactics and practicing by myself. It’s a little bit funny and it’s all a learning process for me. It’s nice to have this experience, and I’m just glad that I’ve had it. It’ll be good for the future for me to have had these sorts of things happen. Everything new can be good for you if you take it positively. Not having a tennis coach is a little bit tricky; I’m glad I played more matches so I didn’t really have to practice that much. That was helpful!

WTA Insider: What does a Petra Kvitova practice session look like? If and when you do add a coach to your team, will you then expect to collaborate with him? Now that you’ve had this independence, how tough will it be to give it up?
Kvitova: I think everything is about compromise and communication. I hope that when I find a good coach, we’ll be able to sit and talk about how everything looks with my game and schedule. I’m not sure that I’ll tell him about this experience, for sure. I’m not really a person that needs to practice five hours a day. Of course, preparation is a different story, but at tournaments, I really need to focus on the game and have good energy for the matches. That’s one thing I’ve learned, and I hope it’ll work.

WTA Insider: Briefly going back to the final today, and having five straight wins over Svitolina coming into the match. What is it about her ball that makes you comfortable on the court, especially with all the improvements she’s made?
Kvitova: Those wins helped me with my confidence. In the last match, I was also a break down in the beginning of the match, and I was still able to turn it around. That helped me today when I was on the court, having that in mind. I can’t say she plays a comfortable game, but I just know I need to play aggressively. She likes to play aggressively too, so I just need to be the first one who is putting pressure on her and play what I can. Sometimes, it ends up being a longer rally than I’d like, but that’s the game. She’s doing what she has to do to beat me. She’s thinking as well, so fair enough. I think my serve helped me a lot and I need to return well, which I was doing pretty good today. In the rallies, she’s really going for it, so it’s just about the few points, and what turned the match on my side.

WTA Insider: You’ve talked about the serve a lot this week. When people think of you and your game, they think of the forehand, the power and precision behind that shot. How important do you feel focusing on the serve will be heading into 2017?
Kvitova: I think that’s the key point, for sure. The serve and return are the beginning of the rallies, and those are very important for putting pressure on your opponent right away. I need to improve my second serve next season. Of course, my forehand is a big one, but I need to work on that, as well. I still miss too many shots over there, but I think overall, it’s pretty good. The power is still the key for me to play well. I just need to keep it there.

WTA Insider: Finally, you’re heading home tonight. Will you be flying home or straight to France ahead of the Fed Cup final?
Kvitova: I’ll be flying to Prague, and then taking a car to go to Strasbourg, so that’ll be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing the team. We have a great team, so I can’t wait to be with them over there. It’ll be the last week of the season, so it’s great to have it then, as well.

WTA Insider: One last ride with the Czech Fed Cup team?
Kvitova: Exactly!

All photos courtesy of WTA Elite Trophy.

There are few athletic endeavors as grueling as the 10-month season of professional tennis, a non-stop world tour that asks its athletes to peak several times throughout the year with little downtime in between. One would then expect any respite, however brief, to be among the most cherished times of year.

The official off-season affords a player nearly two months without set schedules or obligations, time that can be used to refresh the body and reinvigorate the mind for the year ahead. But success on the WTA tour requires a competitive wanderlust that can be hard to switch off, even for a few weeks.

“I didn’t stop, actually,” Karolina Pliskova said this week in Sydney. Peaking at No.7 late last summer, Pliskova played an incredible 28 weeks of tennis last year – including two Fed Cup weekends to help lead the Czech Republic to their fourth title in five years.

“I really didn’t have any off-season because I was playing IPTL. I just had one week off after Fed Cup and that’s it. Since then, I was playing tennis, and I’m still playing. I haven’t stopped yet.”

The Czech star hit the ground running in 2016, too, stepping in for compatriot Lucie Safarova to play a week of Hopman Cup before heading to the Apia International Sydney.

“Lucie wasn’t ready so I decided to go to Perth. Even though I didn’t feel like it was a good week, every match is important. I’m happy I had a few matches there and now a few more matches here. It’s a great start to the new season and it’s important to have some wins before the Australian Open.

It was the nearly full slate of matches played for the International Premier Tennis League’s OUE Singapore Slammers, however, that turned the most heads. Leading yet another team to victory just before Christmas with one-set wins over the likes of Serena Williams, Samantha Stosur, and Kristina Mladenovic, it looked to many as though Pliskova was burning both ends of an already-melted candle.

The 23 year old doesn’t see her scheduling in quite the same way.

“I feel fine, though maybe I was expecting worse,” she said after her first round win over Ana Ivanovic. “IPTL was fun; it wasn’t that bad, physically. It was more about traveling. There was not much of tennis and not much of the things I had to deal with compared to the year before, when I had a really tough off-season home.

“I had my fitness coach and physio with me the whole three weeks, so I was doing some things; it wasn’t like I wasn’t practicing at all.”

Belinda Bencic was Pliskova’s IPTL teammate, and felt similarly about forgoing a traditional off-season in favor of shaking up a part of the season where she winless in 2015.

“The most difficult thing about the start of the season is that you’re not in your rhythm yet,” she told press in Sydney. “You have to find everything again, your whole game. In IPTL, we were all super rusty, but by the first match in Brisbane, I didn’t feel rusty at all. I felt like I was into it.”

Bencic was the story of last summer, winning titles in Eastbourne and Toronto, but injuries curtailed her Asian Swing and left her looking to get off the practice court and back to competing with the best women in the game.

“Last year, I was just practicing a lot and I couldn’t compare myself against the field. You think you’re playing good but then you see the others and you’re like ‘ok, no, not really’ and you get killed.

“Some players took IPTL as an off-season holiday thing, but me, I was preparing. I was happy I got some matches. We were practicing every morning and in the afternoon you could try out what you’ve practiced in a match. It was also fun, better than two months of practice.”

Much as she also enjoyed her tennis-filled off-season, Pliskova was eager to return to competition in the truest sense of the word.

“I was really looking forward to playing a normal tournament, rather than these exhibitions. Even last week, I was playing Hopman Cup and I just feel better at regular tournaments instead of an exhibition.”

With almost metronomic precision, Pliskova’s timing can leave on-lookers breathless, but it’s a skill she finds hard to hone on a practice court.

“I really don’t like practicing, so even if I’m losing or not playing well, it’s just better to play matches.”

A former No.1 who could relate to that sentiment is Jelena Jankovic. Struggling to rediscover her form following a run to last year’s BNP Paribas Open final, the 2008 US Open finalist elected to add to her schedule in 2015, taking wildcards in Strasbourg, Birmingham and even a WTA 125K in Nanchang – which she won – propelling herself to even stronger results at the Western & Southern Open and a pair of titles in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

“At the end of last year, I was able to pick up my game quite a lot and I was able to play much, much better,” she said after her opening round win over Coco Vandeweghe. “I was getting better with each tournament, getting stronger physically and feeling more confidence. I was feeling pretty good about my game and about myself.

“With me, the more I compete, the better I get.”

Though Jankovic played a season of the Champions Tennis League that finished in early December, the Serb will come into the Australian Open with just three best-of-three matches under her belt in 2016, the most recent being a gut-wrenching loss to Sara Errani that demonstrated some of the rust that the likes of Pliskova and Bencic have already shaken off.

“Maybe it’s better to keep going,” Pliskova mused, “because sometimes when you stop it’s harder to start again.”

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

July was defined by four breakthrough players who brought some impressive performances on and off the court. Which one soared the highest?

Have a look at the nominees for July Breakthrough Performance of the Month and cast your vote before Thursday at 11:59pm ET! The winner will be announced Friday, August 5.

July 2016 WTA Breakthrough Performance of the Month Finalists:

Johanna Konta: The British No.1 continued her breakthrough season at the Bank of the West Classic, winning her first title with an epic three-set win over former World No.1 Venus Williams. Konta’s win over Venus was her second of 2016, and put her in shouting distance of becoming the first British woman to reach the Top 10 since Jo Durie in 1984. Playing at the Rogers Cup, Konta reached the quarterfinals and fell one match shy of that Top 10 debut, but is nonetheless at a career-high ranking of No.13 following a strong summer.

Viktorija Golubic: Golubic rang in the inaugural Ladies Championship Gstaad with a home winner in Switzerland. Knocking out French Open semifinalist Kiki Bertens in three sets, Golubic not only captured her first title but also made her Top 100 debut. 

Laura Siegemund: The German had a full circle moment at the Ericsson Open in Bastad. Six years after making her WTA main draw debut in Sweden, Siegemund capped a successful clay court season with her first title in Bastad, defeating Czech youngster Katerina Siniakova in straight sets.

Kristina Kucova: Kucova became the first qualifier to reach the semifinals of the Rogers Cup since Zi Yan in 2007, turning the tables on Canada’s own Eugenie Bouchard and halting Johanna Konta’s Top 10 dream en route to the final four. A former US Open girl’s singles champion, Kucova at long last made her Top 100 debut.

2016 Winners:

January: Zhang Shuai
February: Jelena Ostapenko
March: Nicole Gibbs
April: Cagla Buyukakcay
May: Kiki Bertens
June: Elena Vesnina

How it works:

Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com