I'm not a materialistic person.

I give up on spending time on these courts; I give up on practicing before the tournament I hate. I hate this.

It's too much pressure. You have to think match by match and moment by moment or it drives you to distraction. I'm tired of all the talk about it. Everyone is obsessed with it...If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.

There wasn't a rich father or rich family that paid for everything that I have right now, so I worked my way.

If you get operated, something can go wrong and you can just say bye-bye to tennis. That's what happened to a lot of soccer players in Europe. They get operated, some things, it's not the mistake of the doctor. It's just some surgeries, they just don't go the right way...My injury will never go away. It's already become so chronic there's no chance to fix it so I can play without pain.

All in all, I think Kazan is Russia's sportiest city after Moscow, leaving all the others far behind.

There is no such thing as a perfect player; it doesn't exist.