My serve and my forehand I pretty much always had, but my backhand was a made backhand. I worked on it for years.
Many times the players get in there and it's just about as well as they could have done, and other times they get in there and they favorites and they don't win.
Many tennis coaches are enablers. They need the job more than the player needs the coach, and if the coach needs the job more than the player needs the coach, he can't effect change.
Many Czech people are very talented. They can do many things, but when they get to a certain level, they are satisfied. I am not like that, thank God.
It's very nice to see when somebody who wanted to work hard and is willing to put the work in gets rewarded for it.
It's flattering to be compared in any way to Tiger Woods, because he's the best player in the world.
In tennis you move a lot. Golf you don't. In tennis, you can have a bad half-hour, but you can't in golf. You can lose the first set in tennis and still win.
If you lose, it hurts, but as long as you have fought hard, you can still feel good about yourself.
If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them.
If you go to school and practice for five days a week, it still gives you two days you can go and see your friends, you can go to the movies, you do whatever you like to do.
If you become great, then you can become happy. If you're happy first, it's much more difficult to be great.
If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can.
I was between 2 and 3 in the world for two, three years. That's not exactly where I wanted to be.
I think talent is dangerous to have if you take it for granted. If you use it well and put hard work with it together, it's hard to catch that guy. And I think that's what you're seeing right now.
I think if you look at Andre then and now, you look at two different models. Of course it's personal preference, I think Andre now is a great role model for the kids. He has started training differently than he was before, and so on and so on.
I like to compete.
I just travel all the time. And I was just looking at the schedules now and starting the first week of October I will be every weekend with somebody at tournaments through Christmas. So it gets very difficult to just go away and not do that.
I got bad calls every match, and I never got an apology. So I thought it was rather strange.
I enjoy life. I always enjoy jokes.
I don't make a habit of watching tennis matches, but I try to watch all the major finals. I try to make time for that. So unless I have something going with the kids where I can't, I try to watch, and I enjoy that.
I certainly don't lose any sleep if I lose a tennis match.
But to be fair, if you take players from my era to now, the game has changed and the players have many more shots. They use them differently than we did. The speed of the game has changed.
But it's very difficult, I can tell you I played the Czech Open a few times and it's very difficult just to go on to a scene where the course is prepared differently when the greens are fast and he's not used to it and they're hard as a rock and he's not used to it.
Because in order to beat Jimmy, I had to get around the ball a little bit quicker so I wasn't always on defensive and catching the ball on last stride, that I had little more time. Once I was able to get little bit quicker, then it has helped me a lot.
I'm certainly not sorry that there were some things I missed. You may think you're missing something at that time but later when you look at it, you didn't miss anything.
You have to be a good team, but you have to be lucky and stay away from injuries.
You can't give up in any game, even if you are losing.
You appreciate things after you lose them.
We have a lot of rookies in the lineup. More than anybody, I would say. Its going to be something new for them.They have to understand that it's totally different hockey in the playoffs. Starting with the fans, the intensity of the game, every mistake counts.
There's probably a lot of people wondering if I can play.
