I always looked ahead.

Whatever your goal in life, be proud of every day that you are able to work in that direction.

I was very, very shy as a younger girl, just petrified of people. Tennis helped give me an identity and made me feel like somebody.

Training the body to obey the mind as I have done differs from the more conventional method of getting the mind to obey the body.

Relationships are give-and-take, and when you're a tennis player, you're certainly not giving. You have to be self-absorbed. It has to be about you.

In tennis, at the end of the day you're a winner or a loser. You know exactly where you stand... I don't need that anymore. I don't need my happiness, my well-being, to be based on winning and losing.

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.