Pete Sampras

"When I won the Open in '90, I wasn't ready. Not as a person, and not as a tennis player. I just happened to have two great weeks. That's the only way to explain it. Otherwise, I was a really green, insecure kid.

"The morning after I won, I did all these talk shows. And they made me feel intensely uncomfortable. It's tough for a kid just turning 19 to have all that attention. I was a shy, immature kid, and that came across. Suddenly, everybody always expected me to be in a good mood. But all I really wanted, like most 19-year-olds, was to find a comfort zone as a person, to fit in. And fame wasn't my idea of it. It got overwhelming trying to figure out what people wanted from me. I also saw that what I'd done would affect the rest of my life, and that was scary."

Source: Pete Sampras, in an interview with Peter Bodo. Tennis, 36 (September 2000): 60.