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To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible. You have to be stubborn. You have to be arrogant. You have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost.

With tennis, you can go pick up a racket, take a lesson, and understand how much talent and skill it takes to be as good as the top pros. Same with golf: pick up a club. But not many can go out and get in a race car and experience a drive at over 200 miles an hour.

Tennis has to become everything to you if you're going to make it to the top. You have to live it.

Once you succeed in tennis, financially you become quite well off.

My dad said if you become a tennis professional just make sure you get into the top hundred, because you have to make a little bit of money. You make a living so you can pay your coaching and, you know, your travels.

Tennis is mostly mental. Of course, you must have a lot of physical skill, but you can't play tennis well and not be a good thinker. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.

With tennis, no one's going to give it to you. You have to be determined.

On the tennis court, one needs a cool temperament, tremendous ball sense, reflexes, speed, hand-eye co-ordination, power, timing and peak physical fitness. Off the court, the player and support team need skills in planning, execution, travel, an ability to raise funds when needed, and several other talents.

Core strength and stability is very important to me. Tennis is all about rotation of the body and my ability to create power. I incorporate a lot of abdominal, back and glute exercises into my gym sessions.

In these days of modern tennis a player is as strong as his weakest stroke.