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.
My first U.S. Open I think was just very special for me because that was sort of the beginning of what was a 'Cinderella' story for me.
If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can.
My serve and my forehand I pretty much always had, but my backhand was a made backhand. I worked on it for years.
Many times the players get in there and it's just about as well as they could have done, and other times they get in there and they favorites and they don't win.
I am not looking to be understood or liked. Like me or not, I don't care. I am an outsider, that is the way I was brought up.
Sometimes the ATP puts a lot of pressure on the players and sometimes you get injured because you play on a dangerous surface. Nothing happens, no one pays for that.
It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side... and female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional.
I will tell you King's First Law of Recognition: You never get it when you want it, and then when it comes, you get too much.
You win any which way you can. You do what you have to do to get by. That's the way it works in any job.
If we can make some kind of adjustments, maybe in the game, to make it interesting and slow down the surfaces, then it will be more fun and more interesting.
You know, I eat, I ate pretty well anyway so, I'm basically living the same, I just curtailed the stupidity.
A few of us who are around the sixty mark don't play that much these days and if you are taking on a couple of guys in their forties it is very difficult.
Nothing shocks me anymore. I've embraced men in thongs, I've embraced women with padded bras. I mean, I can embrace Larry King saying 'fierce.'
I'm trying to enjoy my lie as much as I can and I know that tennis hopefully is going to be my life the next 10, 15 years.
I am glad that Wimbledon is my last slam. I love the atmosphere and courts of SW19, and it is an addiction, which I will find tough to give up.
It's important to understand that you have to dedicate time to your sponsors, to have relationships with the people and the media, but it is also hard when you are first coming up and your primary focus is on tennis.
Like most guys, I've always liked watches. I can always check the time on my phone, but having a watch is so much better.
I start laughing every time because the media talks to me like I'm finishing my career and I only have one year left and time is running out.
I'm certainly not sorry that there were some things I missed. You may think you're missing something at that time but later when you look at it, you didn't miss anything.
From where we lived, to practise in St Louis was an hour-and-a-half drive each way, so that took a lot of the time. So really, our lives just took different paths.
