I just wanted to play tennis. I started because I wanted to pick up another sport and then as I was slowly getting better I wanted to see how far I can go but I always wanted to be myself. I wanted to be original. I didn't want to copy anybody's style.
Seems like most of the kids today are into other sports other than tennis.
I would like to see it go back to the wood racquets. To see the touch put back in tennis.
If we can make some kind of adjustments, maybe in the game, to make it interesting and slow down the surfaces, then it will be more fun and more interesting.
I started when I was 8 years old, which is obviously nowadays pretty late, but I guess in my generation it was all right. I had plenty of other interests and I didn't do only tennis.
I was maybe only 13 or 14 when I started to play junior tournaments.
I think no matter what you do you go through stages when you play. There was a number of times when I didn't do very well or was tired. It was too much to combine school and tennis altogether. Parents need to step in and say, take a little time off, do something fun.
I think it was the right time for me to retire because nowadays tennis is too incredibly fast and you can say that my style tennis went out of fashion.
