Zitat des Tages von Pete Sampras:
If Davis Cup was a little bit less or once every two years, I would be more inclined to play. But the way it is now, it is too much tennis for me.
Where I fall down is my short game. I don't practice enough, and when I have to take a half swing from 50 yards out, that's trouble.
The difference of great players is at a certain point in a match they raise their level of play and maintain it. Lesser players play great for a set, but then less.
I let my racket do the talking. That's what I am all about, really. I just go out and win tennis matches.
You kind of live and die by the serve.
After I went through two years of not winning an event, what kept me going was winning one more major. Once I won that last U.S. Open, I spent the next six months trying to figure out what was next. Slowly my passion for the sport just vanished. I had nothing left to prove.
It is nice to walk out on a court to have it packed.
It's not easy to retire at 31. In one respect I was glad I was done. But after a few years of having fun, I got a little restless. When you're 33, 34, and you don't have a focus, you can get kind of lost. As a man, you feel a little bit unfulfilled.
I've worked hard my whole life, since I was a little kid. But now it's a point in my life now where I can just enjoy it, but at the same time I still need to work.
I don't look at myself as a historical icon, but the reality of it is, yeah, I am playing for history now.
I don't know how I do it, I really don't.
When you retire you want to get as far away as possible from the game for a couple of years.
Golfers are forever working on mechanics. My tennis swing hasn't changed in 10 years.
I'm staying in shape, working out.
In tennis, you can make a couple of mistakes and still win. Not in golf. I played three rounds in that Tahoe event, and I was drained. Mentally, not physically.
I could be a jerk and get a lot more publicity, but that's not who I am.
People know me. I'm not going to produce any cartwheels out there. I'm not going to belong on Comedy Central. I'll always be a tennis player, not a celebrity.
There's always one shot that I can rely on when I'm not hitting the ball that well, is my serve.
Tennis is seen all around the world; if I am home or anywhere in the country, United States, people will stare.
People wrote me off, but I believed in myself. I got the confidence back, and it grew and grew. I won my first major and my last at the place that changed my life.
It's not my place to tell you whom to vote for, to take any political stand, to tell you what religion to believe in. I'm an athlete. I can influence certain things, but when I see other athletes and celebrities telling you whom to vote for, I actually get a bit offended.
I did it my way, and I have no regrets when I look back on my career that it was just a big focus for me.
I hate to lose, and I do whatever I can to win, and if it is ugly, it is ugly.