I've been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience.
Starting young has definitely helped my success. All the experience I gained by touring with other players as a backing artist helped to prepare me for my own big break.
The two major things that changed the makeup of all professional sports are money generated by television and courts that players went to in order to win their freedom as free agents.
At least for soccer players, it comes down to a blend of two types of fitness - your base endurance, which comes from longer distance running, and your speed, which comes from sprint-based workouts.
Fitness is defined differently by everyone, but for me, the most important thing is being healthy. As tennis players, what we do is not the healthiest thing. We almost abuse our bodies.
In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. Both players are always instrumental in this.
And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.'
My goal in the beginning was to buy my mother a house. Now I realize, okay, if I really focus and become a key player in business, then I can build an empire.
I can say that hands down from being in this business 32 years; we're going to be much better than we were last year just because there's eight new players that now have experience and Palacios will be healthy.
You as an individual coach have a responsibility to try to give those players who put themselves at risk and in harm's way a chance to achieve success, and that goes for universities and professional teams, as well.
Being named as a finalist for the USA Basketball National Team is an unbelievable feeling and an opportunity that is truly humbling. It is an honor to be included with such talented players and I look forward to the chance to represent my country thi...
Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle.
History shows fans want consolidation; you see it across the web every place. The big players are people like Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook.
A lot of young players don't really know much about the history of the game and a lot of them are missing out on what the game is all about, especially the whole concept of sportsmanship and teamwork.
Man, coaching is a hard job, and it requires a lot of time... I hear stories from coaches who tell me that players call them in the middle of the night not knowing where they parked their car.
Some players tell me that since retiring they've had the urge to go somewhere every three days. To satisfy that urge, they may even jump in the car and drive around the block.
Well my dad was a pretty good player at one stage and my two older brothers played golf as well. So there were always golf clubs flying around the house.
Buy a steak for a player on another club after the game, but don't even speak to him on the field. Get out there and beat them to death.
If you see a player out in public having dinner, chances are he's with his boring money manager or some boring rich guy he hopes to design a golf course for.
I remember Agassi playing Federer in Basel, Switzerland in 1998, and Andre was already saying at that time that Federer would be tough. Usually at the time players are 17, you can see if they will be great.
I just try to be myself, whatever that is. I don't think about how I'll be remembered. I just want to be consistent over a long period of time. That's what the great players do.
