“In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach.”

“Everyone has to try to give back as much as possible because I think in all sports it helps kids to have role models or people to look up to. Someone like Jess Ennis, I know a lot of young girls ha...”

“I used a lot of sports psychologists when I was younger... sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't.”

“A lot of athletes use sports psychologists.”

“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.”

“For much of the year, you're just trying to maintain your fitness. It's not often you get a lot of time to really concentrate on improving it.”

“Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?'WorriesForget your worriesAll the stations full of cracks tilted along the wayThe telegraph wires they hang fromThe grimacing poles that gesticulat...”

“Let's face it. There is no setup in Pakistan to train and groom young players at the grassroots level in different sports. Those of us who did make a name for ourselves and became champions did it ...”

“I've always been a bit of a space geek. I wrote an article years ago about the neutral buoyancy tank, which is this biblically sized pool where they train astronauts. And it was just the coolest th...”

“I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down.”

“I used to play a lot of racket sports, tennis and squash.”

“Tennis was a white, upper-class sport, and I wanted it to be treated like other sports were.”

“I'd become an uncertain creature in her mind, and I found I liked it; she couldn't fathom what else I might be doing when her eyes weren't on me.”

“No matter what anyone says, no matter the excuse or explanation, whatever a person does in the end is what he intended to do all along.”

“I could not tell anymore how much of the screaming came from my own mouth. I was borne up on the swell of it, I was the sound. We were all howling together, the poor and the quality, the boxing gir...”