I believe that everything in life happens for a reason.
I had the pleasure of competing at the Olympic Games and at Wimbledon and was fortunate enough to win the gold medal in both events,
Its silly to say it about a tennis player, but Im an unbelievable hero in Germany. And Germany needs heroes more than any place.
When I was a child, I had posters of James Dean in my room. I was a big admirer of his work and was fascinated by him living on the edge. Looking back, my life was kind of the same.
The eyes of some of the fans at Davis Cup matches scare me. There’s no light in them. Fixed emotions. Blind worship. Horror. It makes me think of what happened to us long ago.
I go to London, my favourite city in the world, and I feel at home.
It’s not that difficult to play well and win titles in a team like Barcelona, but it’s in the national side where you see a player’s true class. That was the case with figures like Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane. With Spain, Iniesta has shown that he is among the best players of all time and that’s why I rate him higher than Messi or Ronaldo. Even though the latter two have incredible scoring records for their clubs, they still haven’t won anything with Argentina or Portugal respectively.
I lost in the second round of the French Open and had 10 days off. I went to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was exciting to be away from my parents, to stay in a hotel. Hotels at 17 meant freedom.
When you are thrown onto the stage at 17 in such an enormous way, it becomes living on the edge because every step you take, every word you speak, every action you do becomes headline news. And it became, for me, life or death.
I believed in raising my children as I had been raised.
I didn’t start a war. Nobody died.
Thats the hard part about sport: as men we havent started to be in our prime, but as athletes we are old people. I needed support. I lost trust and did stupid things.
How do you build a relationship when you’ve hardly shared a word but suddenly share a child? How do you love a daughter you don’t see for nearly two years? When does she become your daughter? How does she become your daughter?
The boys are so powerful off of the baseline now that they don’t have to come to the net to finish points. That’s the reason we went to the net. To finish the point. Nowadays, even the big guys can hit winners four feet behind the baseline.
Tennis has to be very careful.Not everyone is a computer, it is very good we have John McEnroe. I hope we have a couple more.
The fifth set is not about tennis, it’s about nerves.
I go to my favourite tournament, I talk about my favourite sport and it’s just a great month of parading.
Does anyone ask their parents how they are conceived?
Before, I wouldn’t have sacrificed anything for tennis but when I met Barbara it was different. I would have sacrificed tennis for Barbara.
Girls had never been important. I’d had a girlfriend or two and had liked them a lot but it wasn’t love, because my first love was tennis.
So this is it. Match point for eternity.
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