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.
From Pete Sampras
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 never wanted to be the great guy or the colorful guy or the interesting guy. I wanted to be the guy who won titles.
Retirement is a work in progress. I try to figure out my day, and what I know about myself is that I need structure.
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.
All I cared about in tennis was winning.
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 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 could be a jerk and get a lot more publicity, but that's not who I am.
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.
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