Of all my achievements in tennis, I'm probably as proud of my record on clay courts as any of my Wimbledon, U.S. Open or French singles titles.

To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible. You have to be stubborn. You have to be arrogant. You have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost.

Losing hurts me. I was determined to be the best.

Now that I'm losing some, I can see how tough I was -- the killer instinct, the single-mindedness, playing like a machine. Boy, that's what made me a champion.

When I was in grade school and we had to write papers about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a social worker or a missionary or a teacher... Then I got involved with tennis, and everything was just me, me, me. I was totally selfish and thought about myself and nobody else, because if you let up for one minute, someone was going to come along and beat you. I really wouldn't let anyone or any slice of happiness enter... I didn't like the characteristics that it took to become a champion.

When I was younger, I was a robot. Wind her up and she plays tennis.

I've had a lot of fear in my life, from fear of flying to fear of making a speech in front of a lot of people.