If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there's going to be a life after tennis that's a lot longer than your tennis life.
I'm very proud to be a professional tennis player. I'm really happy to be doing something that I love. With this comes responsibility, and I am honored when I am told that I have inspired someone to play tennis.
For me it was just important to play my game and believe until the end. Even now, Venus is not in the top 10, but you can still feel she can be back again.
In tennis you move a lot. Golf you don't. In tennis, you can have a bad half-hour, but you can't in golf. You can lose the first set in tennis and still win.
You have to remember that I played longer than anybody else on the main tour; I played until I was 40, and then played another six years or so on the seniors tour.
Playing in front of 25,000 people and millions more on television, and performing and doing what I worked so hard to try to accomplish was, in my opinion, the ultimate. Do I miss it? Of course I do.
The strongest feelings I experienced were in Davis Cup. It was the most powerful thing: the victories and the losses. It hits you in a distinct way. It's another level of satisfaction - another level of sadness.
Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.
You can't really describe how difficult it is to deal with. It is any athlete's worst nightmare to be accused of cheating by taking drugs. It really is very difficult to put into words how it makes you feel.
The only way to get back the confidence is to play and win matches. You can practise as much as you like, but you need confidence that comes from playing and winning matches.
I'm really looking forward to getting back and winning some matches but I'm not thinking about the U.S. Open yet, just getting through my first match.
When I was eight and a half, my parents moved to a part of Queens where there was a club nearby. We joined, and if you believe in someone up above, I think I was meant to play tennis.
You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit.
I like to have my privacy. I don't like people knowing what I do in my free time. I am also a very shy person, but I understand that people want to know more.
I don't make a habit of watching tennis matches, but I try to watch all the major finals. I try to make time for that. So unless I have something going with the kids where I can't, I try to watch, and I enjoy that.
I could never have gotten back into my career without the undying support of my husband, who works full time at a stressful job! We decided that we were going to do this as total partners and it is a 50/50 deal with us.
I don't really spend money like crazy. I buy what I need and what I really want, and if I'm buying expensive things I do think about the purchase many times before I buy it.
I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But like I said, sometimes in sports it just goes the other way. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. I don't know.
I love football and it's the sport I would really like to play. I've said on national television here that I would really love to play for one of our football clubs when I finished my tennis career.
I did always dream of being a professional player. I think every kid does dream of being a pro, but to last the journey you have to love tennis as a sport and if you are lucky enough to make it in the pros, it is really a bonus.
I always like to win. But I'm the big sister. I want to make sure she has everything, even if I don't have anything. It's hard. I love her too much. That's what counts.
