ON THE TRANSITION FROM PLAYING TO COACHING
The toughest part of coaching is the sitting. No it's the watching. From being down there and being able to take things into my own hands, when my faith rested on me. Now I can help to a certain point, but then it's up to Andy. He's a tremendous learner. He's willing to try things, he's willing to take things right away and put them in a match situation and do it when it counts. That's what it always took for me to be the best.

ON ANDY RODDICK'S TREATMENT IN THE PRESS
He lost a few matches and the press got down on him, and that kind of crept into his head a little bit, and that was one of the things that led me to be a part of what he's got going, to try to clear that up. Because I've taken a little bit of a hammering myself on about six or seven occasions. And I don't think he deserved it.

ON THE CURRENT STATE OF AMERICAN TENNIS
You've got James Blake and Andy now. Before you had Chang, Courier, Agassi, and Sampras. And before that you had 10 or 12 guys who were clearing it up. But everybody's come over here and learned how we do things and brought it back to their home. We thought that would never happen, that we had the best of everything, and were afraid to push it to the next level. Now we've been bypassed. We're two generations behind now.

I see politics as a big part of the game still. Drove me crazy when I was playing, and probably drives me more crazy now to see what's happened to the game here in the States. It really is a shame.

ON ROGER FEDERER SURPASSING CONNORS' RECORD OF 160 CONSECUTIVE WEEKS AS THE #1 RANKED PLAYER
I don't look at my past, to be honest with you. Tennis is what I did, you know. I enjoyed doing it, but it means nothing. I thought that record was broken by Sampras a long time ago.

ON ROGER FEDERER
He comes out to play every match. He's prepared, he's ready to play, and he goes out and puts it on the line. That to me was the best part of being no. 1, that you knew everybody was gunning for you. That's why there's only one no. 1, because you can stand up to that and accept the pressure.

ON CONNORS's LEGENDARY COMPETITIVENESS
I think it's inside of you, everybody's got a competitive edge inside of him it's just how you bring it out. My family taught me that and it was brought out of me in a way that enabled me to take it and carry it on the court and bring it out when I needed it. That can be given to you, but unless you really want it yourself, I don't know just how much good it does you, because there's always somebody out there who's willing to push it that extra inch, or mile, and that was me. (Laughter) I didn't care if it took me 30 minutes or five hours. If you beat me, you had to be the best, or the best you had that day. But that was my passion for the game. If I won, I won, and if I lost, well, I didn't take it so well.