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It was very unusual for a boy to play tennis in my country.

I was very, very shy as a younger girl, just petrified of people. Tennis helped give me an identity and made me feel like somebody.

When I was eight and a half, my parents moved to a part of Queens where there was a club nearby. We joined, and if you believe in someone up above, I think I was meant to play tennis.

I was being groomed to be a tennis player for sure. My grandparents and parents realised I had a natural athletic ability and if I was forced to do it, I could probably do well. But all I wanted was to play pretend.

My mom, she's from Ireland, coached tennis in Nigeria when she was a missionary and turned me on to it when I was young.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

I was a keen sportsman, and became school captain in soccer and cricket.

I knew I was the second-best tennis player in the state of Florida and No. 8 in the United States of America when I was 12 years old and I couldn't tell you what I was in baseball, but I liked my chances in tennis of getting a scholarship to college.

It was very hard for me as a kid to get through as a footballer in Uruguay.

Tennis helped give me an identity and made me feel like somebody.