It was a real rough year and a half. I was getting 80 shots every four weeks.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
In 1979, when I was 39, I had such a bad year, I thought it was all over. Thankfully it wasn't.
Between 12 and 14, I shot up a ridiculous amount. The muscles were struggling to stretch and grow at the rate my bones were growing. It gave me problems with my back and my hamstrings.
But I enjoyed getting sick, I didn't mind it at all. So in that short amount of time, I did actually go from 121 right back up to 180, which is way too fast obviously. And that resulted in some doctors visits to get things sorted out.
It was a tough year for me, '89, losing two Slam finals and losing another five finals. It wasn't until I won the Masters, or what's now called the ATP Finals, that things changed again. Suddenly I won seven tournaments in 1990 and became No. 1.
But in 2000, the injuries really started to kick in and my elbow gave a lot of problems. At the end of the year I had to take 20 months off before I could come back into the game.
I hope I'm still shooting when I'm 80.
We had a week off in the middle of shooting, but as soon as everyone stopped, we all went down with six different types of flu and other unmentionable diseases.
Yeah, two or three weeks ago I was fairly snappy. I've never been injured before and this year it feels like I've hardly played.
Each and every year I feel like I've gotten a little bit better and that's always been my goal, was just to get a little bit better.