“You have to believe in the long term plan you have but you need the short term goals to motivate and inspire you.”

With all the injury problems we have in men’s tennis at the moment, I’m happy to still be standing.

I was aware of how incredible the match was. Unfortunately there had to be a winner. From my point of view many left feeling sorry for me instead of being happy for Rafa. Which hurts.

One should just be able to play a perfect game.

I never waited 27 years, because 27 years ago I was just born. My parents never told me, ‘If you don’t win Roland Garros we take you to the orphanage.

The one thing you can do for sure is push the luck on your side.

You can be stubborn and successful or you can give it up a bit and change things around. For me it’s important to have a bit of both.

I’m not the kind of guy who wakes up angry.

I am a sucker for those old traditional places, and Rome is as good as it gets, particularly when you throw in Italian food.

My game is a lot about footwork. If I move well, I play well.

My family is the thing I miss most on the tour.

I always knew I had something special.

Confidence? Are you kidding me? I mean, please. Look, some players grow up and play like that. I remember losing junior matches. Just being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots.

It is always in my mind still that I can crush anybody. That’s not an issue. But I think that is the same for most athletes. If you don’t believe you can win tournaments anymore, then you can’t do it.

You always want to win. That is why you play tennis, because you love the sport and try to be the best you can at it.

I always had the dream that, once I became No 1 in the world, that if I had a child I hoped I would have it early enough so the child can see me playing.

I have a very strong opinion. I’m absolutely against it. I’m against the challenge system. I’m for the way it is right now. Don’t change that.

I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system – that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality.

You overrate my capacity of love. I don’t posess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of me.

Don’t believe everything your mind tells you.

I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

My father believes that Western religions are death cults, which I agree with.

He gave me a look at myself I’ve never had before. He saw something in me nobody else ever did. He made me see it too. He made me believe it.

It is commonly believed that anyone who tabulates numbers is a statistician. This is like believing that anyone who owns a scalpel is a surgeon.