My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen. ↗
It was simple reality - most competitive tennis players in my day were privileged, spoiled, entitled and white. Also, many of them were beautiful, fit, tan and of good stock - great big hair and white teeth and long legs. Then there were the rest of us. ↗
A lot of things happened when I left there, and to be fair they treated me really bad, and now I have to play against them so I don't have any feelings for them at all. ↗
I think it was in Moscow last year and I got changed for training the day before we played Moscow, but the fact is they actually wanted to do John's, me and John were next to each other and they did mine by mistake. John had done them I think. So yeah it is true. ↗
I don't believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game. ↗