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.

Every generation I think gets better usually [in tennis].

As far as U.S. tennis, we need new stars coming up in the pipeline, but I don't know if we have it.

Men can have a huge turnover of sponsorship and still survive a lot better than the women. But the women's ratings are better, at least at home in the United States than in the men's tennis.

I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life.

Female athletes are stereotyped by the general population--and usually as homosexuals.

I have often been asked whether I am a women or an athlete. The question is absurd. Men are not asked that. I am an athlete. I am a women.