The very first tournament I watched is the U.S. Open when I was 13. And that was the year Juli Inkster won.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was maybe only 13 or 14 when I started to play junior tournaments.
The earliest golfing memories that I have are of the Italian Open when I was about six years of age. Watching that event is how I really got started in the game.
It wasn't until '79 I won my first amateur championship, and then, by '81, I was 14, and I won my first world championship, which was amazing to me, and in a very real sense, that was the first real victory I had.
I don't remember the first time I won. I remember the first time I lost, and it sucked. It was go-karts; I was, like, 6 years old.
The first win came very quick, and I didn't know what it meant to win a major championship. I was a teenager, I was very young. I didn't know what I was doing. I just needed some time to get settled in on the tour.
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.
First round of the tournament being a Major, I think the butterflies were a little different than that.
I began playing in the Pacific Coast Indoor Tennis Championships.
I was in the main draw from the start, my opening match was on Court One against Jan Eric Lundquist of Sweden who was about eight in the world at the time.
I won my first medal when I was nine years old. It was at the Boston Open.