There are certainly great cities in America that don't have ATP and WTA events. Our fans are very provincial. They want American champions.

Even the poor can be fat in the U.S. That says something about a country. That's how incredible what we have is. But it can also take away incentive.

I knew I was the second-best tennis player in the state of Florida and No. 8 in the United States of America when I was 12 years old and I couldn't tell you what I was in baseball, but I liked my chances in tennis of getting a scholarship to college.

Hell be lucky to last five or six years on those knees. What it might have to come down to is playing less on hard surfaces and playing more on forgiving surfaces.

The reason I didn't take the baseball route is because they don't have rankings for baseball players.

It's hard for anyone in the 24-hour news cycles that we all live in now to follow something that the first round is played in March and the final finishes in December. I understand the challenges there.

Us going out there and performing our best. That's how I define success. I'm not going to define it for us by the wins and the losses as much as by the effort and how we handle ourselves.