Monica Seles

“I've always been a very private person.”

“Everybody has their story - at some point you have to say, 'This is who I am: Now it's up to me to become what I want to be.'”

“Since I retired, I very much enjoy watching Serena Williams play. While I was playing, she was one of the toughest players I ever faced. Her ground strokes are so solid, her serve is one of the most powerful in women's tennis, and mentally she is just so strong.”

“Life is not worth living if I cannot have pasta or bread again.”

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

“Did you know that Christmas Day is absolutely the best day to fly? It is. No crowded airports and crowded planes. I always flew to Australia. That's what Christmas was for me - a plane journey to the next tournament.”

“I am lucky to have advisers whom I trust.”

“It doesn't matter who is playing or how old they are. I just worry about what I can control. It doesn't give me more or less motivation.”

“Tennis is pretty unforgiving if you are carrying weight. You are expected to wear short skirts, and you are compared to all these 16 and 17-year-olds.”

“You will never have great tennis champions from England because of the cold and dark, but most of all because people only care about the sport for two weeks a year, and then they're on to something else. There's just not a great love of the sport there.”

“As a top player, you have to keep your emotions in check. You think you can control everything.”

“I love to eat.”

“That's the key to success, isn't it? It has to be fun.”

“I used to pretend that I was Tom attacking Jerry, who was drawn on the ball.”

“If I find the person that I love, it is because I love them, not because I will be dependent on them.”

“Madonna has total control over her life, and not many women have that.”

“If you look at tennis, the girls have become much more attractive; they wear makeup. In my generation, you were a tennis player. It wasn't like you had to look a certain way.”

“People think I must have been so talented at an early age, but I don't know - was it talent or hard work? Who knows?”

“I would like to thank all my tennis fans who were there from Day One when I was No. 1, through my stabbing, and my comeback.”

“I never really did Christmas before. Christmas Day? I mean - what's that? What's it all about? I was always flying on Christmas Day.”