In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement.

You've got to believe you can win. But I believe respect for the fact that you can lose is what you always have to keep in mind so that nothing suprises you.

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.

You don't cheat anybody out of their experience, whatever it is.

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.

But, I would say when I was four years old and I was at the Alan King Tennis Tournament and I was hitting with all the pros that would come to town. They would get me on the court or take notice and that stayed with me.

What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.