WTA this week: Language lessons with Petra Kvitova

• Petra Kvitova says she is working hard on improving her English
• Kvitova also speaks Czech and Slovak and understands some Russian and Polish
• "Now I am not that nervous when I am in the press conference room"

For Czech tennis player Petra Kvitova, 22, winning tennis matches translates to ranking points, prize money and, it turns out, also a bigger English vocabulary.

Speaking by phone recently before her first Asian tournament and after a successful U.S. hardcourt season, the former Wimbledon winner and current world No. 5 felt her English had improved over the past few months. Playing in North America, where she spoke mainly English, helped. So did winning.

"I had a good result this year, I had a lot of interviews," she says. "So that helped a lot also."

Kvitova, who's mentioned lately that she wants to work on her English, has relatively little to work on where tennis is concerned.

Kvitova, who lost Monday in Beijing, over the next month or so will represent the Czech Republic against Serbia in the Fed Cup final and will likely also play the year-end TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships. For the past few years Kvitova – along with current No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki and world No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska – has been among the four most-discussed young players. Last year when she won Wimbledon, she became the first player born in the 1990s to win a singles major. Early this year she was two wins from the top ranking.

She has her challenges (primarily inconsistency and asthma), but she also has weapons aplenty and perhaps the biggest upside of the post-Serena Williams pack.

Why she's working on her English

Naturally more people want to speak to Kvitova these days, and many of them speak English.

"I think English is very important for tennis players," she says. "To be on the tour it's much more easier if you speak English. So that's why I knew that I have to improve my English."

While women's tennis is a global sport with tournaments in 32 countries and players from 92 countries, per the WTA website, the Introduction of the WTA Official Rulebook states this: "English is the official language of the WTA."

Still it's impressive that Kvitova and other players – many of whom already speak multiple languages and spend most of their time traveling and playing elite-level tennis – make a concerted effort to get better at English. Especially since many already speak it well enough to talk to the media for stories published worldwide.

Kvitova also speaks Czech and Slovak and understands some Russian and Polish. She's working on her English to communicate more easily with media, sponsors and other players.

It seems grammar matters but vocabulary more so. "It's more important to know lots of words," Kvitova says. "To speak what you are feeling and what you know about your game or about the player or something like this."

About two months after Wimbledon last year, during an interview for this profile, Kvitova said she was working on her consistency. Asked how she replied with a too-quick "I don't know!" then laughed. Maybe she wasn't sure or, in retrospect, maybe she couldn't find the words.

These days she's working on both her consistency and her English. The latter, she admits, feels more like work than fun: "I'm not very talented in speaking foreign language, so I think it's work for sure."

What she's doing

When Kvitova's home in the Czech Republic she takes daily English lessons. The thing is, she's rarely home. On the road she practices by reading; she's currently reading The Secret Garden. She also practices by speaking; there are the interviews but also day-to-day conversations in New Haven, Cincinnati and other hardcourt stops.

Coincidentally or not she made most progress in the tennis and English departments in the same North American city: "When we were in Montreal I had to speak in English with Katie for one week, because I didn't have my coach there. So that helped a lot."

Montreal is where Kvitova won her first title this year. And "Katie" is Katie Spellman, Kvitova's public relations manager. The two talk or write each other in English every day.

"She most wants to improve her grammar – particularly the use of the definite and indefinite article as well as verb conjugation," Spellman says.

Like other non-native English speakers Kvitova might omit "the" where it's commonly used or insert it where it's not. Often the Czech city where she trains is "the Prostejov." Sometimes Serena Williams is – charmingly and perhaps fittingly – "the Serena."

Kvitova's also learning idiomatic expressions. One she learned during the Olympics is "it's not my cup of tea." Another? Kvitova cites "it's raining dogs and cats" and adds, "It's very useful in England." (She chuckled after that last bit.)

How she's faring

The Czech player feels her English vocabulary and conversational ability have improved. Says Kvitova, "Now I am not that nervous when I am in the press conference room."

It shows. She says more these days. Her first transcribed press conference at 2010 Wimbledon contains 428 words. Her first at this year's contains 1,211 words. (Of course, it's not just that she says more. She's asked more, too.)

Kvitova also seems bubblier now. After her Cincinnati semifinal, though it was late and she had just lost, she entered the interview room with a cheery greeting and exited with a singsongy "good night." (Incidentally Kvitova's easy to like; last year fellow players awarded her the WTA sportsmanship award.)

You don't have to be up close to notice the changes. Check out WTA's YouTube video of the Montreal trophy ceremony. The video starts with a presenter saying, "Ms. Kvitova, please say a few words." The comments start with this one: "Her English is getting so much better."

English lessons won't transform Petra Kvitova into Jelena Jankovic, the former No. 1 who's now struggling but still loquacious. Kvitova's a woman of few words, English or otherwise.

With Kvitova, her coach has said, it's better to say the "right words in the right moment" and better not to go on for an hour. And the main Kvitova interview on which this piece was based was meant to include eight questions in 10 minutes but fit 12 questions in eight minutes.

You could say Petra Kvitova lets her tennis do the talking; and when she's on court – and she's on – it's hard to miss what she's saying.