“I learned English in one month. I told myself I should listen. In the next month I could talk to everyone. I was so happy because I could do one thing…I could talk.”

I’d love to open a tennis school for children in my hometown of Sochi.

I’m not the next Kournikova-I want to win matches!

It’s easy to impress me. I don’t need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I’m happy. I’m satisfied. I’m content.

When I’m down or maybe when it’s close in the match, I feel like I’m still in it. I don’t feel like I’m letting down. Mentally, I’m still really, really tough.

When you’re going through tough moments, you never know when you’re going to have good moments.

My main goal is to stay healthy because when you’re injured you realise how lucky you are to have your health.

If I can create something that allows a woman to feel better – that is the true reward.

When you come off the court and you feel like you were losing the whole match, and all of a sudden you pulled it out, you know, it’s those moments that you feel you’ve trained for and you work hard for. Just lucky to get through.

That’s why we have journalists, for stats.

I can’t please everyone. That’s not in my J.D., you know, not in my job description.

I’m always that annoying person that pulls out the camera in the middle of dinner and starts taking candids.

I think when you have surgery on any part of your body, it’s never going to be the same.

Whether you win a match or lose a match, in terms of your emotions, it’s important to be pretty levelheaded.

As an individual, I take every match seriously, no matter who I’m going to play.

It’s always tough when you lose – you’ve worked so hard for that moment and it hasn’t gone the way you wanted. But you have to realise there’s always a bright side, you have to pick yourself up and get ready for the next game.

I’d probably start charging for medical timeouts. I think we’d all see who really uses them and who doesn’t.

My mother has always been unhappy with what I do. She would rather I do something nicer, like be a bricklayer.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.

The truth is that finding happiness in what you do every day is so imperative.

Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse.

Do what makes you happy. Keep it simple. Do the research. Work hard. Look ahead.

I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

When people are living from passion, they tend to be fulfilled, happy, healthy, and love everyone around them.