I play enough tennis during the year; I'm sick of it by the time I get home. So the last thing I want to do is go out there and hit more balls.
I had an opportunity to hit tennis balls with Billie Jean King when she was in South Africa when I was 11. She encouraged me to pursue my dream, and I did.
My doctor asked me how many golf balls I had hit in my career. I'm lying there in bed calculating somewhere between four and five million golf balls I had hit to do that on my body.
What a doctor I've got - he's really mixed up. Last week, he grabbed my knee and told me to cough. Then hit me in the balls with a hammer.
Tennis was always there for me, which was lucky. I would go play baseball, basketball, football, hang with my brother, do whatever, and at the end of the day I'd come back and say, 'Hey, Mom, would you hit 15 minutes worth of balls with me?'
I really like the smell of the tennis balls, the new ones. I don't need to do it, but it's just my habit, what I do on the court when we change for the new tennis balls. I just smell them. Maybe it's for luck. I've been doing it all my life.
I didn't want anyone to teach me how to hit a forehand or hit 600 backhands. I don't need that. I've hit a billion in my lifetime.
When I'm tired, I like to go and do drills where you catch tennis balls off walls. Different colors use different hands, and you've got to react to those types of things at different angles. I do all these crazy reaction-time things or reaction skills with tennis balls every morning, or at least four times a week.
I feel that I've had enough theoretical speculation to last me a lifetime.
I enjoy hitting tennis balls. I haven't lost any of the innocent parts of tennis. I just do it in front of less people.
Oh aye...my Father would thrash me every now and then. He'd talk while he did it too! He'd hit me and shout, 'Have ye had enough?' Had enough? Whit kind of question is that? 'Why, Father, would another kick in the balls be out of the question???'
You are no different in this lifetime than you were in your last lifetime. This lifetime is simply a continuation of your last lifetime.
You hear stories about me beating my brains out practicing, but the truth is, I was enjoying myself. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning so I could hit balls. I'd be at the practice tee at the crack of dawn, hit balls for a few hours, then take a break and get right back to it. And I still thoroughly enjoy it. When I'm hitting the ball where I want, hard and crisply - when anyone is - it's a joy that very few people experience.
The last 12 balls you don't have to think too much, just see the ball and hit the ball.
I have enough love to last me a lifetime! Thank God I'll never lose my imagination and my passion. That's really what it is. I'm still passionate about what I do.
I'm a huge tennis fan, so the game I play the most is 'Top Spin.' You really have to know how to play tennis to get good at this game - whether you want to hit a forehand or a backhand, when's the best time to hit a slice - it's so real.