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I think music for me, it's part of my life. I like music. I think I'm very emotional, so, you know, I just try to take all the emotion, you know, that music bring it to me, you know, some make - I mean, help me to calm down some, for sure motivate me more. You know, there's always music. I think just make me smooth before the match, you know.
The goal for the Laureus Sport For Good Foundation is to give kids an opportunity to be involved in sports and hopefully learn some lessons along the way. We want to put them in a safe environment, help them if they need it and maybe they will get a scholarship to a school because of the skills that they learn. Sport is just a starting point.
We players are as normal human beings as anyone else, and we also have the right to live a normal life. I don't understand why people talk so much about the way we dress up, how we walk, what we eat, and every little detail of ours. Players are the real heroes. Sports have both respect and fame, and I am fortunate enough to be a sportsperson.
I proved that I can win the Grand Slams. I proved that I can last four and a half hours and come out on top against one of the strongest guys physically that tennis had probably seen especially on this surface. So they would probably be the things that I would say I have learned tonight: To not doubt myself physically and mentally from now on.
Getting married is great, and I feel really good away from the court, and my private life and stuff is good. But you still need to train and work hard. Like, I didn't go on a honeymoon after we got married; I went to Barcelona and trained for 10 days to get ready for the clay-court season. It's been good, but you still have to put the work in.
I just remember watching Federer the first year he won Wimbledon. He was struggling with his back problem. I remember it vividly. It looked like there was a chance he was not going to finish. He had that look in his eye. Then, somehow, he found the wherewithal to dig a little deeper, and suddenly he wins the thing, and he's a different player.
Today people hit the ball with much more strength. Almost every player is capable of playing a winning stroke from any position. This means the balls arrive more quickly. If you want to reach them, you have to slow down from a high speed or suddenly change direction. These are moments when you can injure yourself, and that's what wears us out.
In a way, architecture is about communication. That's an aspect of the discipline that is somewhat lacking, and there's definitely room for more progression into that area. I suppose that gives me a bit of a different edge. I'm also very, very used to doing a lot of exhaustive research and finding interesting information from different sources.
The week before the (US Open) I gave a few interviews for CNN, USA Network, New York Times, USA Today and Sports Illustrated which had been arranged beforehand. The reason for giving these interviews is not only because working with the media is just part of the job, it is much more my desire to contribute to the promotion of tennis in the U.S.
I was looking in the mirror today and my waist is still 28 inches. I think it's all because I have a large bosom and a large ass. I have a large ass and it always just looks like I'm bigger than the rest of the girls. I could lose 20 pounds and I'm still going to have these knockers and I'm going to have this ass, and that's just the way it is.
I get some letters from a lot of people. Sometimes it's nice, with letters from kids or from parents of kids who want to be tennis players, but I also get racist letters. It's really painful to receive something like that because you're not ready for that. You think to yourself, 'That's really bad.' But I realise that there are people like that.
One billion grains of sand come into existence in the world each second. That's a cyclical process. As rocks and mountains die, grains of sand are born. Some of those grains may then cement naturally into sandstone. And as the sandstone weathers, new grains break free. Some of those grains may then accumulate on a massive scale, into a sand dune.
People in the States used to think that if girls were good at sports their sexuality would be affected. Being feminine meant being a cheerleader, not being an athlete. The image of women is changing now. You don't have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you're a good athlete, it doesn't mean you're not a woman.
I never felt I had anything to hide. I never felt being gay was anything to be ashamed of, so I never felt apologetic. I didn't have issues with it, didn't grow up with any religion, so I didn't have any religious, you know, issues to deal with as far as homosexuality is concerned. So, I accepted it very easily. For me, it wasn't that big a deal.
When I was 12 years old, I was just horrible. My parents were ashamed to watch my matches. I would play on a court at the local club and they would watch from the balcony. They would scream, 'Be quiet' to me and I would scream back, 'Go and have a drink. Leave me alone.' Then we would drive home in a very quiet car. No one speaking to each other.
I don't go out of my way to get noticed. When I'm in Scotland it's tough, because loads of people come up to me. They're always really polite. It's nice, it's fun and good to speak to people who aren't involved in tennis, but some have this habit of just staring at me and that makes me really self-conscious. I'd rather they came up and said hello.
I think when I was younger, I was struggling to kind of differentiating love from a personal love or a tennis love or whatever else. There was time that I wasn't sure how to deal with both things in the same time. But you learn. I guess we grow. I mean, I don't want to say I've learned from my mistakes, but I've learned myself a little bit better.
I used to go into pubs and people would want to pick a fight with me. I would hear a group of girls say: 'Oh look, there's Pat Cash.' And then one of them would come up to me and say, 'You think you're so good,' and throw a drink in my face. That kind of reaction from people was a bit of a shock initially, and you don't ever really get used to it.
Tipping generally changes depending on where you are in the world. In Britain you don't always have to tip, but I always make sure I do. I have a lot of respect for waiters and waitresses - it can't be an easy job and they often don't get paid huge amounts, so I think it's important to reward them and let them know if they are giving great service.
Boxers risk a lot in the ring. That's one of the things that attracts me to it. You want to see a knockout but I also really don't want to see people get hurt. It's this constant dilemma when I'm watching boxing. The only times I get nervous is watching a really big fight or when my brother is playing. I get to the stage where I'm actually shaking.
I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.
So many athletes are afraid to use their platform to do the right thing and speak what they feel, and that's very depressing. Sure, they are afraid of insulting people and losing money because of it, and everyone wants to make the maximum amount of money in their lifetime. But at the expense of who you are? I don't know. That just wasn't in my DNA.
I don`t know why, but I love the dog eat dog nature of tennis. It`s real, it`s brutal and there`s no hiding place - it's like a one to one street fight. I love the intensity that comes with knowing you walk off court either a winner or a loser. It`s daunting but very exciting. There is no one to blame except yourself, no one cares who comes second.
For sure, with golf it's not a physically demanding sport like tennis. That's what makes tennis great - you combine both things. It's a very mental sport and at the same time can be dramatically physical. But I do admire the mentality of sport more than the physicality because physical performance is much easier to practice than mental performance.
Having been away from competitive tennis for a while, I am looking forward immensely to getting back on the circuit ... I am looking forward to playing the Big Girls. People have had expectations from me even when I was 10 years old. I try to switch off but you are right, it isn't always easy to do that because the expectations are really mounting.
I know some of my self-worth comes from tennis, and it's hard to think of doing something else where you know you'll never be thebest. Tennis players are rare creatures: where else in the world can you know that you're the best? The definitiveness of it is the beauty of it, but it's not all there is to life and I'm ready to explore the alternatives.
Even though Hubbard is dead, his business still repeats his lies, ... and in my opinion the proposed Act should also punish businesses and organizations that repeat such falsehoods. It is a gross insult to American men and women who have actually been wounded and who have actually earned the medals and awards that frauds and con-artists falsely claim.
If you are not physically strong, it's difficult. But at the same time, I think you need something more than that; you need to vary your shots, as Justine has been able to do in Amelia or Charleston, where she beat her -- I can't remember where it was on clay. So you need this kind of thing. But of course if you're not fit, you'll never make it through.
I think when you start to do well and get your confidence back, everything becomes more fun. When you're playing with not your full capacity of confidence, I think things get a little tough. I knew I could be doing better than what I was doing. Even though I was ranked 5 or 4 or whatever it was, I wanted to get back to the level I thought I could play at.
Tennis is more than just a sport. It's an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater. When I step on the court I feel like Anna Pavlova. Or like Adelina Patti. Or even like Sarah Bernhardt. I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It's the crisis of my life.
I think that always myself is my worst opponent. I always playing against myself first and then to the other one. So I'm playing against two guys during the match...It's like mentally I don't know what is gonna happen in the next ten minutes. Maybe I get depressed in ten minutes. I don't know myself too much...Yeah, I was working with a psychology, and I still.
The outfit is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It's kind of about a surprise, because when Alice goes down the rabbit hole, she finds all these things that are so surprising. This outfit is about having a surprise in a tennis dress, and showing some skin and then just having a print. Prints don't happen that often in tennis. So it's called the Wonderland dress.
At the end of the day, you just have to focus on winning. No one can take a win away from you. That's what I focused on. Life is not fair, so I don't go out there expecting it to be. I don't think any of us should go out expecting life to be fair. I think that's expecting too much, and I remind myself of that sometimes. You can get on with your life after that.
I hope so. God, I've practiced so much that I you don't want to be worse five years later. I feel I have a great game today. I know how hard it is to pull off those great shots, and I know how easy it is to miss, so I'm more aware of these things. But I'm so happy I'm at the age I am right now because I had such a great run and I know there's still more possible.
I am not that far away from becoming the No. 1 player in the world. I am only around 1,000 points away from achieving it. The key will be whether I can play better and more consistently on hard courts. If I continue to play well in the European clay court season and then take that form to the hardcourts in the United Sates, I could finish the year as the world No. 1.
The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What's the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?
There were a lot of people shouting out. I know it's not proper tennis etiquette, but this is the first time I've ever played here that the crowd has been behind me like that. Today I felt American, you know, for the first time at the U.S. Open. So I've waited my whole career to have this moment and here it is. ... It was great. It was awesome. It was like winning gold.
On a given day, Serena Williams could beat some players. I believe because she's so incredibly strong mentally that she could overcome some situations where players would choke 'cause she's been in it so many times, so many situations at Wimbledon, The U.S. Open, etc. But if she had to just play the circuit - the men's circuit - that would be an entirely different story.
As a child I was a good boy. Even if I wasn't playing tennis I don't think I'd have done things like smoking or getting drunk. I'm lucky I never liked the taste of alcohol - I know, I'm Scottish so what's wrong with me? - but I never even liked the smell of the stuff. It's the same with smoking, it never appealed to me. I guess I missed out on my Kevin-The-Teenager phase.
If you saw me with my clothes off you'd see that my body is in great shape and ready to take on the world.... I could snap my fingers and have any man I wanted, but I have too much respect for myself for that.... People can look then wonder about the taste and the sensuous delights of the dish, but when it comes down to it they simply can't afford such an expensive luxury.
You have to understand who you are and figure out a way to communicate it. It might be in a different industry, but it's about what pumps the blood through your veins, what makes you excited, what pushes your buttons. And then discovering the best way to communicate that, no matter how big or small; it's what you stand for, what you believe in, and what reflects who you are.
I think the Davis Cup has some untapped potential. It should be as prominent as the Grand Slams when it takes place. If you put it together with Fed Cup for an organized, nationalistic team competition taking place in a central location for two weeks, I think that would be beneficial from a fan interest stand point, from a media stand point and from a television stand point.
Some folks call tennis a rich people's sport or a white person's game. I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do. Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis. You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.
I understand how much everyone wanted to see a British winner at Wimbledon and I hope everyone enjoyed it. I worked so hard in that last game. It's the hardest few points I've had to play in my life. I don't know how I came through the final three points... that last game ... my head was kind of everywhere. That last game will be the toughest game I'll play in my career, ever.
If Id lived prior to the 1980s, it would have been different, because I would have been playing to prove African Americans are equal. Now, I dont necessarily feel I have to play for black people, because obviously theyre doing everything in all sports. If I can go out there and play for myself and not feel I have to stand for something other than what I want to do, thats good.
I'd like to say that I am romantic person, but I don't think I am. When I won my first tournament I went into the crowd and kissed my girlfriend. I was 18 and didn't have my coach with me, I was there on my own, and I just needed to celebrate with someone I knew. I always start out with good intentions. I'll say something nice, then I'll just put my foot in it and ruin the moment.
If you're a champion, you have to have it in your heart. You can have the greatest coaches in the world, all the opportunities to play, and the greatest equipment, but if you don't have it inside, you're not going to make it. On the other hand, if you don't have any of those luxuries but you have heart and courage and the guts to go out there and grind it out, then you'll make it.
The way I look at the top five, (Rod) Laver, (Roger) Federer, myself, Borg and (Ivan) Lendl. I think those five guys dominated their generations better than anyone. Maybe Roger will dominate better than any one of the other four. Maybe I put Andre (Agassi) as kind of six through 10 with, you know, (John) McEnroe and (Jimmy) Connors, kind of those guys. That's kind of how I see it.
As a kid, I was a little self-conscious because I was so much taller than everyone. A bad habit of mine used to be slouching. Eventually, I realized my height was something I couldn't control, so I might as well accept it. I've certainly turned it into a positive, because without my height I probably wouldn't be as good of a tennis player. It's a gift, and I've made something of it.
That was...that was choking. You're right. But of course when you play against (Roger) Federer, he's No. 1 in the world, he won three grand slams last year, and he's just full of confidence. It's difficult to do anything regular to beat him. You have to do something extra to be able to have the chance to beat him. Set points, I had six of them and I couldn't take one. But I was close.