I want to be a top-10 player and I want to win a Grand Slam tournament.
I have six racquets and usually two pairs of tennis shoes with me. Most of the time, the shoes can last two or three weeks if I'm playing all the week. I'm not the kind of player who slides a lot, so I just need one extra pair in my bag.
I started in a very small tennis club in a South American country where I never thought about becoming the best tennis player.
I don't watch much tennis, never really have.
I was always in the tennis business-from 1968. I was in tournaments and also on World Team Tennis teams as well.
I had one good racket, a Wilson Javelin. It was my favorite racket, and I made the mistake of putting it next to the heater. It just got so hot that it melted.
I think the players, I put in the book for example that we should go back to wood rackets, probably they laughed at me, I'm a dinosaur, but I think that you see these great players, have even more variety and you see more strategy, there'd be more subtlety.
At the end of the day, it is a very long year. The tennis season is pretty much ten months of the year.
There are so many great players on the men's - and women's - side. Hopefully I can keep improving and eventually play in the Masters.
I used to get two racquets a year. As you can imagine, they didn't last me too long.
I think that tennis has been in a place for many years without any change. Davis Cup and Fed Cup has always been a very exciting platform for players because it is such an individual sport, and we get to play a team competition. We love being part of a team.
Every time I tour, I find a pro - I go to the local tennis center in that country, wherever it is and I play.
Looking back, in comparison, there wasn't that much that you could do with a wooden racket. In my day, the matches were certainly much less demanding physically.
My goal is to win a single A.T.P. point.
I would like to see it go back to the wood racquets. To see the touch put back in tennis.
Unless a player goes in for intensive play and tournament competition, two racquets are sufficient.
It is never too late to get into tennis! While I started playing at the age of 8 when my parents gave me a tennis racquet for Christmas, tennis is a lifelong sport that can be enjoyed by people of almost any age. It's also something you never forget once you learn.
Balls should be good for at least six sets, and for more for the average player. But if the rallies are long, they do not last as long as this. There is a fuzz on the surface that wears off on the hard court.
Tennis is a funny game, and it takes a life-time of keeping one's eyes open on the circuit to have any chance of understanding the strange phenomena that exist in our exciting sport!
I had not picked up a tennis racket in 15 years, so I tried.
I actually tried quite a few racquets in college before I turned pro.
Tennis is interesting. I feel, in terms of stats and stuff, maybe we're a little bit behind the curve, especially me just coming to the States and seeing stats used for, obviously, NFL, NBA, et cetera. Especially in baseball, there's stats galore.
To me, there are only a few tournaments that are important. The Grand Slams, Davis Cup, the Swedish Open; that's about it.
I have finally mastered what to do with the second tennis ball. Having small hands, I was becoming terribly self-conscious about keeping it in a can in the car while I served the first one. I noted some women tucked the second ball just inside the elastic leg of their tennis panties. I tried, but found the space already occupied by a leg. Now, I simply drop the second ball down my cleavage, giving me a chest that often stuns my opponent throughout an entire set.
When people are coming to Krakow and we show them how and where we practice, they are like, 'Seriously? Are you kidding me?' But we're always saying that what matters about the courts - the lines, the nets - are the same. I'm practicing in Poland even when I don't have good facilities.
