The world's No. 1 female tennis player – the Great Dane, Caroline Wozniacki – comes into the room at the Rexall Centre, all fresh and ready and unwilling to contemplate any roadblock in her way at the Rogers Cup and beyond.
"I don't think about that," said the 21-year-old, the first Danish player to make it to the finals of a Grand Slam tournament. She was referring to all the chatter, perhaps even criticism, about her being one of the few No. 1 players never to have won a Grand Slam.
But world No. 2, Kim Clijsters, has really lived. The Belgian star has had her Grand Slam days. She's 28 and a mother, and a young woman whose father died of skin cancer. She's learned a lot in the past few years – retiring, marrying a basketball player, having a child, rejoining the tennis tour, juggling family with work – all in a few short years. Her lessons haven't all been about tennis. That may be her strength.
There are similarities between the current No. 1 (for the past 43 weeks, actually) and the former No. 1. Wozniacki is the daughter of Polish immigrants to Denmark. Her father, Piotr, played for a Danish soccer club and her mother played on the Polish national volleyball team.
Clijsters' father, Lei, was a former footballer and her mother was a former national gymnastics champion.
But Clijsters has discovered that it's not enough to live and breathe sports. She's played high-level tennis since she was 6 or 7.
As for Wozniacki, she's learned so far to dial out the distractions, rather than live with them. "I'm enjoying every minute [of being No. 1]" she said. "It doesn't really matter if people believe in me or not. I believe in myself. And that's the most important thing."
Players come and go. Older players retire. A new generation, of which she is a part, comes in. It was ever thus. "You just think about yourself," said Wozniacki, all blond and hale. "You think about the point you are going to play. You don't look ahead in the draw, at least I don't."
Wozniacki got a bye in the first round of the Rogers Cup and will play the winner of the Yanina Wickmayer-Roberta Vinci match.
As for Clijsters, who also received a first-round bye, she's had to deal with dirty diapers (she does have a nanny to help out) and grocery shopping and echoing hospital halls. She's learned that life works best if you turn a negative into a positive.
"Sometimes it's hard to see in the beginning," Clijsters said. "But now that I'm a little bit older, well, the year I had to take are of my dad when he was sick, it was very sad. But my sister and I are so proud that we did that for him."
All of her recent adventures have made Clijsters realize that she can work very hard to be the best player she can, but she doesn't waste her time on what she calls "stupid stuff."
She defines stupid stuff as things that needlessly waste energy, like worrying about losing a match or a tournament or a set or a game. "When I was young, I used to be devastated if I would lose," she said. "I am still frustrated when I lose, but I am able to step aside and say, okay, you lost this match, why, and how can I solve it?"
It's not a way of thinking restricted to tennis players or athletes in general. "You see it everywhere," Clijsters said. She sees it in people who get angry with others while driving, or when they're lining up in a supermarket.
She saw one rattled woman try to break into a supermarket line, apologizing for rushing, because she was late, only to be met with ire from another woman annoyed at the inconvenience.
If she had met Clijsters in the line, the tousle-headed Belgian would have reasoned that the interruption would have meant losing only a few minutes to help another overwhelmed shopper.
"Some people get so stressed and nervous and mad," she said.
That's just not Clijsters. Perhaps Wozniacki will follow in her shoes and find this wisdom. Perhaps she will. She's interested in keeping her feet on the ground.