“It’s easy to impress me. I don’t need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I’m happy. I’m satisfied. I’m content.”
“I want to be different. If everyone is wearing black, I want to be wearing red.”
“I want my handbags and my shoes to be stylish but I want to make sure that they’re versatile. I travel and I have to make sure the pieces I put into my bag can go with a dress or with shorts or jeans.”
“I’m focused on going out every day and doing my best.”
“There are so many roads you can take that will lead you the wrong way, that nobody will hear your name.”
“When you’re going through tough moments, you never know when you’re going to have good moments.”
“If you’re able to help some people and make them smile and make them realize that life is good, then that’s worth so much more than buying a pair of shoes.”
“When I need to push myself, I think of all those nicely polished trophies waiting to be lifted up by the winner – and how that winner might be me.”
“I don’t spend a lot of my time in the locker room. That’s my least favourite place in the world.”
“Since I’m constantly in the sun, I use sunscreen daily.”
“The more matches I play, the more confident I get.”
“I’m always on the go. I love doing things until I hit rock bottom. Then I need my 12 hours of sleep, and I’m on the go again.”
“If I loved a guy as much as I love my dog, the guy would be in serious trouble. Because I’m all over that dog, all the time.”
“Without my dad, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I still love things that you don’t even need to pay for. Going to the beach and being around five of your friends and having a good time means so much more than going out and spending hundreds of dollars.”
“You have your bad moments in your career and your good moments. And it’s been a good ride so far, but it’s not over yet.”
“I learned there’s a big difference between juniors and the pros.”
“Sometimes I feel my arm is like a swan’s neck – so weak.”
“I can’t please everyone. That’s not in my J.D., you know, not in my job description.”
“I love where I’m from. I don’t live there because of the circumstances, but all my family is there. It’s what’s inside, it’s not what’s outside that determines the culture and the feeling.”
“When you are young, you are a little naive.”
“I’m not the next anyone, I’m the first Maria Sharapova.”
“Well, fans always root for the underdog.”
“I’m an athlete. I go out there and fight my heart out.”
“Through my travels, I find inspiration in street style and how young women create their individual looks and identity.”
“I’m not a huge gym person, so I try to stay away from the gym. But I love to run on the beach or go for a walk. It’s better than riding a stationary bike.”
“You control your own wins and losses.”
“I heard endless conversations between my parents when I was going to sleep about how we would survive, how we would continue. All of them were about trying to make me better.”
“Sometimes when you’re putting the work in it just seems so, so hard, and you never know when that work’s going to pay off.”
“I’d love to open a tennis school for children in my hometown of Sochi.”
“Since I was young, the artistic expression that fashion embodies has inspired me. It’s a way to communicate oneself.”
“Music is a part of my life all the time – on the plane, before matches, driving out to the court.”
“I love jotting down ideas for my blog, so I doodle or take notes on all kinds of stuff that inspires me: the people I meet, boutiques I visit, a florist that just gave me a great idea for an interior-design project, things like that.”
“I’ve been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience.”
“When you look good, you feel good. Confidence with what you’re wearing is very important. If you feel good, you will always perform your best without worrying about anything.”
“I’m just like every other girl who likes to shop, likes to look good, likes to spend time with friends.”
“A great tennis career is something that a 15-year-old normally doesn’t have. I hope my example helps other teens believe they can accomplish things they never thought possible.”
“I don’t follow other players or the tournaments they play. I have my own schedule and do my own thing. I never really think, ‘Oh, I want to be or play like so-and-so.’ I just like being myself.”
“There are days when I go out on the court and I feel like I can’t miss a ball.”
“I don’t worry about what my opponent is doing.”
“As an individual, I take every match seriously, no matter who I’m going to play.”
“I look forward to the challenges.”
“The forehands or backhands don’t mean much after three hours.”
“I mean, I think I’m doing a lot better than other people that have had shoulder surgery in their careers. Some people have never come back.”
“My parents had a normal life in Russia and they could have easily kept living a normal life, working and raising a child in Russia.”
“I love competing.”
“I definitely feel Russian inside, even when I’m in America I feel Russian.”
“I have a Russian heart.”
“I try not to hit a swing volley and run back. So my swing volley is kind of that transition to the net. It’s been one of my favorite shots ever since I was young.”
“I’m just a very tough person when I go on the court, and I really don’t want to lose.”
“I love yoga. I do yoga when I have time, which is not very often.”
“When I walk through that gate to the court, that’s my escape. I block out everything, good and bad.”
“I love playing for my country, getting the support. Especially for the kids and everybody, showing my example of what I can achieve so early. And maybe they can achieve it, too, just to get that in their minds.”
“I’ve been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line.”
“If I can create something that allows a woman to feel better – that is the true reward.”
“To be honest, everything in my life outside of tennis is great. I’m doing amazing projects that, if I didn’t have time off, I wouldn’t be able to focus on.”
“I’d like to have a family.”
“When you travel so many weeks a year, it’s always nice to have a home-cooked meal.”
“If I’m nervous, it means I had to work hard to get there, whether it’s playing in a tournament or speaking at an event. So I try to stop and be proud of getting to live in that moment.”
“Whenever I have friends over, we end up eating and talking and losing track of time, and, once in a while, singing karaoke. It reminds me of the family meals we had in Russia, which always lasted a very long time. That’s a tradition I miss.”
“I never really had an idol.”
“I love to eat, and if I could, I’d eat every second of my life.”
“I help design my own tennis clothes.”
“When I make a commitment I stick to it.”
“There’s not many firsts in my career, as I have been a part of many tournaments and fortunate enough to win many.”
“I always have a Sharpie, because usually when someone asks me for an autograph, they don’t have a pen. I carry one in my purse, as well as in my tennis bag.”
“I think when you know what you are going to wear, it fits and it’s great material, then you feel confident in it.”
“I think it’s so cool to be tall. Even when I’m not wearing heels people tell me I’m tall and I always take it as a complement. The good thing is I can always see everybody in the room.”
“I love street style, seeing how girls wear pieces and how their pair accessories with their outfit. How they pair shoes with a bag and go to day to night and change things up.”
“I’m an afternoon tea type of girl. I come from a Russian background where we love our teas. So between lunch and dinner after training I come home and I love a nice cup of tea with jam in it, as we drink it there. Black English Breakfast with raspberry jam is my favorite.”
“I have a very big sweet tooth and I love treating myself to something that I wouldn’t necessarily eat during the tournament such as a nice-sized cake.”
“I don’t get to do as much sightseeing as I would like to.”
“I don’t do heavy weights at all.”
“I go to yoga classes and work on my core.”
“I love what I do and I love being an athlete, but I also love all the things that have come with it.”
“I’m never standing still and that makes my life pretty exciting.”
“My family and I built my whole career from scratch.”
“I know my roots and I cannot forget the journey I made.”
“I spent a whole year when I was injured just trying to get my arm back to the point where I could hit a tennis ball for more than 30 minutes a day. I’d hit for 15 minutes and it would feel as if my arm was going to fall off.”
“I hit a ball for a living, but I have that passion to keep learning.”
“It’s strange for my friends when they see me on TV and in magazines, because the person that they see doing interviews and pictures on the red carpet is not the person that they know.”
“I don’t need many things. I don’t need glamour and attention to be happy. I’m very happy being settled and working my butt off and trying to win grand slams.”
“I want my tennis to speak for everything.”
“I love getting consumer reports. I think it’s one of my favourite things, studying what people have to say about the product and then trying to make it better.”
“I find a lot of inspiration in street style and watching women walk, the way they wear things and what they’re wearing.”
“No matter what you study, the thing that you know best is what you grew up with.”
“I owe a lot to my parents.”
“Tennis has given me this wonderful life and I’m very grateful for it.”
“I have had lots of luck in my career but there has also been a lot of hard work.”
“My main goal is to stay healthy because when you’re injured you realise how lucky you are to have your health.”
“It’s always tough when you lose – you’ve worked so hard for that moment and it hasn’t gone the way you wanted. But you have to realise there’s always a bright side, you have to pick yourself up and get ready for the next game.”
“When I travel, I love speaking to women around the world about the things that inspire them, the fashions they like, what makes something good and what would make it even better.”
“I have always had an interest in fashion and design and I appreciate style and timelessness within my footwear and accessories both on and off the court.”
“I love to collect modern art.”
“Whether you win a match or lose a match, in terms of your emotions, it’s important to be pretty levelheaded.”
“After being on the court for six hours, being on TV is very glamorous and fun for me. But tennis is always going to be my priority. It’s not going to be this thing when all of a sudden TV will get in the way of that.”
“I’m always that annoying person that pulls out the camera in the middle of dinner and starts taking candids.”
“Ever since I was young I loved making things and being part of the design process.”
“Of course, everyone knows my story of being born in Russia and moving to the United States at 7. For a few years people would say, ‘Well, she’s living in the United States, but she’s Russian.’”
“When I’m down or maybe when it’s close in the match, I feel like I’m still in it. I don’t feel like I’m letting down. Mentally, I’m still really, really tough.”
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