But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?

Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you’re too damned old to do anything about it.

I hate to lose more than I love to win.

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.

People don’t seem to understand that it’s a damn war out there.

But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?

I was never part of the crowd.

Tennis was never work for me, tennis was fun. And the tougher the battle and the longer the match, the more fun I had.

Every time I went out there I performed the best that I could and it was time to step back and clear my mind.

Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible.

I would watch Gonzalez play and he mesmerized you. It would be like looking into the flame of a fire. You know you couldn’t take your eyes off him because you never knew what he would do next.

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.

For the last five or six years the most important thing in my life has been my family.

No, like I said, my dad was never really part of the tennis. His involvement around what I did with the tennis and with my mom and my grandparents was really not a part of my life.

Use it or lose it.

Bjorn was a different breed, I threw my best material at him, but he would never smile, but that added to the charm when he played me and Mac. We were going nuts and losing our mind and he was sitting back like he was on a Sunday stroll.

New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.