Monica Seles's Quotes

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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

I love new restaurants; I love trying out new foods.

I love to eat.

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.

I think for me, food was a way for me to deal with emotional trouble.

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

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'm about the present.

I've always been a very private person.