I think one of the concerns, anytime you're in the human business, like sports, it's a very high - risk endeavor. You do have to get players every year. You have to deal with calendar. You have to deal with all kinds of things in our sport, like every sport does.

When people tell you not to believe in your dreams, and they say “Why?”, say “Why not?

Don't be afraid to hit the ball.

I've never cared that much for cementing my place in history. Sports is so transitory, so ephemeral. It just seems like so much nonsense comparing me to Helen Wills Moody or Suzanne Lenglen or anybody else from some other time. One lesson you learn from sports is that life goes on without you.

I would love to be a player today. I had the right personality for it.

Tennis is a game of angles. You never have time to figure the angles. It's practiced. It's so practiced that it becomes an instinct. You just know where to put the ball. You just feel it. It has been computed into your brain so many times ­ it is there.

Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.