Boris Becker

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.

An autobiography is not about pictures; it’s about the stories; it’s about honesty and as much truth as you can tell without coming too close to other people’s privacy.

I am thrilled to be the new team captain. I am sure that the pressures I’ve faced on centre court will stand me in good stead to battle it out against Ian and his team.

I’m not a God, I make mistakes.

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?

If I go into a club now, all the blonde girls leave my corner and all the black girls come into my corner. It’s as if I’m racist towards white girls!

I’m really, really emotional.

I go to my favourite tournament, I talk about my favourite sport and it’s just a great month of parading.

I live where I would like to live. I live in Majorca, Spain, and I am not sure there are better places.

Money plays an important role in football but it is not the dominating factor. When Chelsea play a Carling Cup game in a small city and it could result in a draw – the excitement, the spirit, the atmosphere – that’s the real beauty of football in England.

You can swim any way you like in the Dead Sea, actually.

If the girls and boys have talent and feel like working on themselves, they can become champions.

Our strategy [at Chelsea] is to bring up our own players through the academy, which we have invested a lot in, and hope it gives results.

I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering.

Some people may learn something from the way I play tennis. But there are also players who are better than me in certain techniques.

I swim almost every day, a thousand meters.

[on Roman Abramovich] We were never friends – José Mourinho

I appreciate a lot in this life; the things you cannot buy. Life is only once.

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.

You just try to play tough and focus point for point. Sounds so boring, but it’s the right thing to do out there.

My uncle developed the training philosophy. His idea of good tennis training is basically quite simple: you must try to gain time.