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

It’s strange for my friends when they see me on TV and in magazines, because the person that they see doing interviews and pictures on the red carpet is not the person that they know.

When you travel so many weeks a year, it’s always nice to have a home-cooked meal.

Since I’m constantly in the sun, I use sunscreen daily.

When you are young, you are a little naive.

Sometimes when you’re putting the work in it just seems so, so hard, and you never know when that work’s going to pay off.

I think it’s so cool to be tall. Even when I’m not wearing heels people tell me I’m tall and I always take it as a complement. The good thing is I can always see everybody in the room.

It’s nice to be one of the most beautiful people.

Since I was young, the artistic expression that fashion embodies has inspired me. It’s a way to communicate oneself.

It’s pretty hard being a tennis player and Mother Theresa at the same time and that’s just the way it is.

My style when I was younger was still unique to me. I didn’t necessarily dress by the trends, but I was always aware of what was trendy at the time and how I could apply it to my own sense of style.

I’ve been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line.

When I need to push myself, I think of all those nicely polished trophies waiting to be lifted up by the winner – and how that winner might be me.

I still love things that you don’t even need to pay for. Going to the beach and being around five of your friends and having a good time means so much more than going out and spending hundreds of dollars.

I’d like to have a family.

I definitely feel Russian inside, even when I’m in America I feel Russian.

I know many of you thought that I would be retiring today, but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet.

A World Cup without Zlatan is not worth watching.

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.

What hurts most is whenever I am leading, and then I lose the match, it is disappointing, and there are so many such matches.

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.

I didn’t think I would have an Olympic medal at 21, but I knew I would give my best and play my game. I just viewed it as my first Olympics and that I would take it one match at a time, but to bring a silver home made me very, very happy.

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

If the wind itself turned to silk, singing ballads in my lungs, it couldn’t even hope to match the softness of your touch.

No cricket should be played for at least a month anywhere in the world after a World Cup.