But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.

Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don’t go near the online bookies – unless it’s research. […] Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven’t written yet.

To get this prize, I was required to talk about how important a particular European feminist woman writer had been to me. Now the truth was that I had never managed to finish this feminist writer’s book. It did not speak to me. It would have been a lie to claim that she had any major influence on my thinking. […] I could have said that this woman was important to me, and I could have talked the talk, and I could have been given the prize and a shiny present. But I didn’t.

When I ask myself what I've found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is “bullshit.” I realize that answer is somewhat tautological. It's almost the definition of bullshit that it's the stuff that life is too short for. And yet bullshit does have a distinctive character. There's something fake about it. It's the junk food of experience. If you ask yourself what you spend your time on that's bullshit, you probably already know the answer. Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people's mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes.

The Olympics: all my dreams came true in one place.

Picking up dog poop at home: my sister and I used to take turns.

Yes. Today has been really stressful. We had a workout this morning. It went okay. And then just that five and a half hour wait or something. I was just shaking, could barely nap. I've just never felt like this going into a competition before. And I tried to go out here and have fun. And warm up in the back went a little bit better. But then once I came out here, I was like, "No, mental is not there. So I just need to let the girls do it and focus on myself."

As a confident, inspirational and very bubbly person.

Yeah, I say put mental health first because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're not going to succeed as much as you want to. So it's okay sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are rather than just battle through it.

Nothing. Everything has led me to who and where I am now.