Quotes from Monica Seles

I don't like salads: I like the strong food.

I lost my dad way too early and it was agonisingly awful. I missed him so much and I hated knowing that I could never again pick up the phone to tell him about my day.

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

For me, the biggest thing with money has always been independence - just the biggest.

I never knew I was grunting, it was just part of my strokes.

I'm 5 feet 10 inches, and whatever my whatever my weight is, that's fine. As long as I am able to move and I feel good, it doesn't matter.

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.

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.

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

I've always been a very private person.

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

It doesnt matter who is playing or how old they are. I just worry about what I can control. It doesnt give me more or less motivation.

Tennis is so competitive. I guess that's the way it has to be.

I am lucky to have advisers whom I trust.

I did realise more than ever, after the stabbing, that tennis is a business - a tough business.

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.

I have this terrible dark side to my personality, which playing tennis keeps at bay.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

What I put in the stock market, I dont have to touch in my lifetime. I want to live off my bonds. I want to be that safe.