The question
What one change would most improve the quality of your daily life?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
United States professional tennis player, 1995–2022
Taking time every day to read the Bible.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 January 2021 source ↗
Less time on my phone.
I wish I could worry less.
Stopping being such a helicopter parent and worrying about these grownup children’s lives. It drives me mad. And I am having therapy. If I could stop thinking that I should be their first port of call for everything, it would free my head up a bit.
If we went back to house phones and were a bit more disconnected.
Any lost match is, of course, disappointing, but every loss is a lesson to be learned.
I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn't feel like a modern word to me. I've been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution. I'm here to tell you that I'm evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.
I don’t think about my greatest fear.
I wouldn’t change anything about myself. If you asked me 20 years ago, I probably would have had a long list. But I’ve learned to appreciate and love who I am.
But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.
My mom and dad. They always encouraged me to keep spiritual things first.
Victoria Pendleton, Chris Bonington, Bradley Wiggins, Harry Redknapp, Lleyton Hewitt, Steffi Graf
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