Right now my main aim is not to get injured any more. I am a little bit afraid of running and sliding because the ankle was so painful. But I am not a person who runs a lot, who spends a lot of energy on the court. If I am mentally OK, if nothing is bothering me and I want to play, then it is fine.
You know why I want to win? Because of 15,000 reasons inside of the tennis court.
Never give up. Last year I was trying to give up but I couldn't.
That was...that was choking. You're right. But of course when you play against (Roger) Federer, he's No. 1 in the world, he won three grand slams last year, and he's just full of confidence. It's difficult to do anything regular to beat him. You have to do something extra to be able to have the chance to beat him. Set points, I had six of them and I couldn't take one. But I was close.
It's too much pressure. You have to think match by match and moment by moment or it drives you to distraction. I'm tired of all the talk about it. Everyone is obsessed with it...If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.
New York is a fantastic city.
It was really impossible to break through in Russia. We couldn't buy any balls. We really didn't have any courts, no rackets, nothing. And no people to practice with.
I'm not a materialistic person.
It's a pity that the tennis is really going down the drain. Every year it's getting worse and worse and worse. There has to be a radical change, and I hope it will be really soon.
No matter what happens, tennis is still tennis: You can see a lot of great matches, a lot of new people.
I achieved what I want to achieve and I want to continue doing something else.
I love tennis, but I just don't like grass.
I try to do my best to have fun off the court.
You cannot take all the chances you get.
It is very hard for me to switch from clay to grass.
I've had a lot of luck. If I didn't I'd be washing bottles in Russia.
I pass through the difficult moments in life, really difficult times on grass, during my seven years of my career. All of a sudden I felt comfortable.
If you get operated, something can go wrong and you can just say bye-bye to tennis. That's what happened to a lot of soccer players in Europe. They get operated, some things, it's not the mistake of the doctor. It's just some surgeries, they just don't go the right way...My injury will never go away. It's already become so chronic there's no chance to fix it so I can play without pain.
Me, I don't need money.
Lady, can you speak up a little bit? Indianapolis is a little far from Europe - I can't hear you.
I've felt it (shoulder soreness) since the first day I came, but more so now. Yesterday in the doubles I felt like I couldn't serve at all. I had a lot of pain. I decided to stop because without the serve it doesn't make any sense. It's better to stop and try to recover. If you play, you play 100 percent, not to suffer on the court...Hopefully I'll be ready for the Australian Open. I'll ask for a late start and try to recover. I can playing forehand, backhand, anything except serve.
It's too many questions about what I'm going to do, why I'm retiring, and this and that. So I answer the same question, I don't know, a thousand times.
You cannot change me; this is the way I am.
I give up on spending time on these courts; I give up on practicing before the tournament I hate. I hate this.
I could pose in fashion commercials as a high society star but politics is a new way of life.
