I had my moments for sure but I wasn't confrontational. And sometimes you get on the court and you'd find yourself very confrontational. It was all a discovery.

No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, but tennis players talk to themselves-and answer. Tennis players look like lunatics in a public square.

My accomplishments do not live up to my tennis game. Most people have to work really hard and win some big matches, and then they get money and popularity. For me it has been the reverse of everybody else. The exact opposite.

If you're ranked number one in the world it's because you've earned it, and I think the only way to really get there is to have that ability and to have it nurtured in a very competitive environment at an early age.

It's no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it's all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It's our choice.

This sport has given me so much that my hope would be to give back as much as I can for as long as I can.

There's no such thing as an open draw. At least for me - I mean, obviously for Roger Federer, I think every draw feels open for him - but for me there's no such thing as an open draw