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It is just a crazy life as a sportsman. My daughter, Sam, wants to go into tennis, and I tell her, 'No, you don't want to go into professional sport.'

I used to be a columnist for 'Golf Monthly' and have contributed articles for national newspapers based on the humour that is in abundance in the game, which is more than can be said of tennis.

The sports space is so full of opinion that you aren't hearing from the athletes just speaking for themselves. We are such a Twitter-oriented society with radio talk shows, TV talk shows and social media - what you are missing is the authentic, unfiltered aspect of who these people are.

Professional tennis has become an extremely physical and unbelievably competitive sport. Injuries are the bane of tennis players, and it goes with the territory.

When you're representing a sport, people are more likely to judge and comment as, unlike other fields, sport permits every viewer to participate to a certain level.

I look at tennis as a bit of a platform to hopefully touch lives and encourage people.

It's just nice to see people enthusiastic about their tennis and want to learn and improve - for me that's the most important thing - I still love my tennis.

When I came on the tour, I thought, 'Why don't they treat tennis players the same way they look at football players?' Because I've got news for you: when they are on the pitch, they are not saying, 'Hello, how are you?' out there.

I really try not to read the tennis articles, because a lot of times they're guessing at how a player is feeling, and I like to keep myself kind of open minded about how I'm feeling, rather than have someone else explain to me what's going on.

There is this brutal side to tennis. It was invented as a game for kings and cardinals and people with a lot of power who didn't have to share the field with other players.