INTERNATIONAL TENNIS HALL OF FAME

August 22, 2025

Maria Sharapova

Bob Bryan

Mike Bryan

Dan Faber

Kim Clijsters

Patrick McEnroe

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Thanks for being with us here at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. I'm Brett Haber. So glad that you're able to be with us in Newport and those joining us by Zoom around the world. We are thrilled to welcome members of the media, Hall of Famers, and tennis fans around the U.S. and in other countries.

Each year this induction celebration serves as a bridge between the past, the present, and the future of tennis. It brings together Hall of Famers, legends of the game, and tennis fans of all ages to celebrate and reflect on the incredible careers of our newest inductees.

Today I have the high privilege of introducing a class that embodies excellence, passion, and impact at the very highest level. So please now join me in welcoming today's panel.

Starting with former pro tennis player, Davis Cup Captain, broadcaster, and President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Patrick McEnroe.

Four-time Grand Slam singles champion, former world No. 1, Hall of Famer, and President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Kim Clijsters. CEO of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Dan Faber.

And this weekend's guests of honor, your class of 2025. Together they achieved 16 major titles and remain the most successful doubles team in ATP Tour history, Bob and Mike Bryan.

And finally, five-time singles major champion and one of only ten women in tennis history to achieve a career singles Grand Slam, Maria Sharapova.

Before we kick off the questions to our incoming class, I want to acknowledge everything that's happening here on the grounds of the Hall of Fame this weekend. Dan, let me start with you.

Not only has the museum recently had a full makeover, but this induction celebration now feels bigger and bolder than ever before. Can you speak to the decisions behind these changes and what this new era means to the International Tennis Hall of Fame?

DAN FABER: Sure. Thanks, Brett. Exactly that. When you think about in the next five-plus years of who is being inducted and the history that was prior to this, it's pretty amazing what we have ahead of us here.

So when we were thinking, how do we become a little more creative, reimagine what that's going to look like, it was decided with the help of the Board of Governors that we needed to separate the tennis tournament and the actual induction celebration, and that's exactly what we did this year.

So this has allowed us to kind of extend the celebration per se through the weekend. So now what you are experiencing... hopefully last night you kind of felt some of that change... is an opportunity to rethink, to redefine on how we celebrate this ultimate honor in the sport of tennis. So hopefully as we go through the weekend, a lot of us will understand how that connects to our mission of promoting and preserving the sport of tennis, celebrating these incredible legacies and achievements of these players. We do that to inspire generations globally.

So a lot of what we have done is put that mindset to what would that look like, what would that feel like? I think we're going to experience that as we go through the weekend.

THE MODERATOR: And we already have. Patrick, this weekend has a particular siblings bent to it. It occurs to all of us that you are probably one of the few players who can truly understand the special bond of playing alongside your brother and what that means. How special has it been for you to not just have witnessed, but as their Davis Cup Captain and long-time friend, to have been a part of the amazing career Bob and Mike have put together?

PATRICK McENROE: It's been pretty awesome is the bottom line. As Dan said, we have three players going in this year that their stories are very inspirational.

What Maria did to come from where she came from as a 7-year-old and to all she's accomplished, you know, one of the greatest competitors tennis has ever seen. As you said, to win on every surface was incredible.

Bob and Mike, you know, I'm not sure if I considered them like brothers, sons, you know, great friends. In a lot of ways I learned a lot of things from them too, watching what they do in my years as Davis Cup Captain and the way they prepared themselves, the way they handled themselves as individuals. Not just on the tennis court, but just class personified. They just brought it. They brought it every single time they came, not just to play the match, but for practice. They really led by example in what they did day in, day out.

For me it was an incredible experience to be a small part of that. Davis Cup and playing for their country in the Olympics, I know was very important to them. It's something I grew up with, my brother and I, from our parents, too, that if you ever have the chance to represent your country, you do it.

I think my brother's career as a Davis Cup player is pretty darn good, and I think their career overall and as Davis Cup players is pretty darn good, too.

Congrats to Maria and to Bob and Mike. It's going to be a heck of a weekend. I'm happy to be part of it.

THE MODERATOR: That's very well said, Patrick. Thank you. To say nothing of the Stanford connection that you share with Bob and Mike.

Kim, having been in the shoes of these three incoming class members, what did it mean to you to be able to deliver the news to all three of them, and in particular Maria, with whom you have so much history on and off the court?

KIM CLIJSTERS: It was very special, because I remember exactly the moment when I got a call from Stan. I was actually driving, so I parked my car. It felt very overwhelming and very, very special.

So the fact that I was able to deliver that message to Bob, Mike, and Maria was very unique. We did have some technical difficulties, computer and Zoom stuff. They were in the wrong waiting room. So we were kind of, like, Where are they, so the nerves built up even more for me. It was very special.

I think we all knew that there was no doubt that they were going to get in, but it's still, once you get the official call, yeah, it's very special, and it's one of the favorite things that I have done as an honorary president, president to be able to deliver that official message.

THE MODERATOR: What a special honor that must be. Let's now turn our attention to our three inductees. This weekend is obviously an opportunity for you guys to reflect on your careers, on your lives, on your achievements, on everything that led you to this moment.

Maria, if I can start with you, have you had time to wrap your arms around what it means to receive what is the highest honor in this sport?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: First of all, it's been a while since I've attended a press conference, so I may be a little rusty, but it's a beautiful one, to say the least. Great to see familiar faces.

I have had a little time, and quite honestly, I'm not someone that looks back very often, but the magnitude of this occasion has really given me the space and I guess authority to look back and really appreciate and put an emphasis on, wow, there was a lot of sacrifices done, there was a lot of hard work, and boy, was it worth it.

Now as a mother of a 3-year-old, leading businesses and investments, I have a very different perspective, and my everyday routine is very different, but I still get to carry all the disciplines of my sport. The lessons that I learned throughout the years are applied every single day. I'm just so grateful for them, because I feel like I still in every venture and especially as a mom, the patience, the tenacity, you know, being able to pivot at any moment are all things that I got to learn for so many years on the job every day.

Yeah, it's been very special looking back. When Kim called me, despite the technical difficulties, where I was, like, Am I in, am I out, what's the news? It's just to see a familiar face for whom I have so much respect and admiration. To see her in this role as a mom and also the president, which every role she takes very seriously and was always such a great example of just being a human being, whether it's fighting it out at the end of the third set, you know, or being that person that walks up to you after a tough day in the locker room and giving you a hug. It's just really nice to put all of that behind us and say, Wow, where has life taken us now?

That's kind of been my emotions and my thoughts in the last few months, and to see everyone here in one space is very special.

THE MODERATOR: Well said. Bob, let me turn it to you. You're both students of tennis history, and I know it must mean a great deal to find yourself now on the continuum and in this exclusive club of the greatest that the sport has ever known.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah, look, thanks for putting this whole thing on, Dan, Kim, P. Mac. We looked up to you and big fans of everything you've done on the court and accomplished off the court, as well.

Yeah, it's kind of a mind-blowing experience. We went through the museum yesterday. We hadn't been back here since we played the tournament back in 2003. Just walking through and seeing Agassi's Nike shirt with the lava and seeing Gustavo Kuerten's blue Diadora shirt and all the champions and people that we idolized and their relics in there.

Then coming down the hallway and seeing our shirt that we wore at the Olympics, it's incredible. It's humbling. Like Maria said, there's a lot of people that have sacrificed so much for us to be on this stage, but it was a hell of a journey.

Just doing it with Mike the whole time, being able to share the ups and the downs the whole time made it that much more memorable. The fact that we could always do it together as a family. You know, our parents were tennis pros. They own a tennis club. We were with them every day. To be able to spend that much time with your parents is really a dream for any kid. They took us to tournaments on the weekends, and they were involved in our career the whole way through. So to have them here as this is the peak of the mountain, you know.

So I'm happy to kind of reminisce with them and all our coaches. You have Mark Bey here and David Macpherson. I saw Maria had a bunch of tables of people that have helped her. That's what this is all about is giving thanks to those people that have put us up on this stage, because a lot of those people were in the shadows. They didn't get press. They didn't get articles written about them, but they definitely pushed us along the whole way.

THE MODERATOR: Mike, as you told Jim last night, you played the ad court, so you played all the break points and the pressure moments. Based on that, you're going to talk first in the speech tomorrow?

MIKE BRYAN: Tomorrow I'm kicking it off. We don't know if we're going to do it separately or together.

KIM CLIJSTERS: You don't know yet?

THE MODERATOR: You still haven't worked it out, Mike? It's kind of getting to be time.

MIKE BRYAN: He wants to do it together. I might pull out and do my own thing.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Is your speech done? Did you perfect it?

MIKE BRYAN: It's right here in Notes. Yeah, no.

BOB BRYAN: How is yours coming?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I would say it's, like, 80% there.

BOB BRYAN: I don't think I'm going to write one. I'm just going to wing it. Let's just see how I do.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I've never written a speech. I feel like I'm going to have to go off script.

BOB BRYAN: Every Hall of Famer says that. I'm like, How long did you take you to write the speech? Oh, I just went up there and spoke what I felt on the day. That's bull --

MIKE BRYAN: We've been thinking about it for a year.

THE MODERATOR: Can we get a medic for Dan Faber? I think he is having a heart attack.

DAN FABER: The anxiety is picking up right now.

KIM CLIJSTERS: They had a countdown clock on their phone. The last time I saw it it was, like, 53 days or something to go.

BOB BRYAN: Is this the first year that the speeches are on the clock, like there's a time limit?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Oh, screw the clock.

BOB BRYAN: There we go.

KIM CLIJSTERS: Don't worry about it. They have that every year. Don't worry, everybody goes over.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: We're breaking rules. We're not getting any fines for this, no.

MIKE BRYAN: I'll have some hand signals.

THE MODERATOR: Do you think anybody is really going to stop you?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I mean --

BOB BRYAN: The sound guy.

KIM CLIJSTERS: I'm not. Tried before. Maybe you, Brett.

THE MODERATOR: Oh, no, won't be me. Thanks for sharing those thoughts, and we can't wait to hear what you do come up with to say tomorrow. We would like to open the floor to questions.

Q. Maria, can I pick up on something you said at the dinner last night, which --

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Oh, God.

Q. -- people not be have to totally clocked into, that your fight and determination, refusal to lose, was for you, but also for the kid in the stand, hoping to inspire the next generation. I want to take you back to one specific moment of fighting back. Probably the hottest day at the Australian Open. You had done your career. You had won your titles. You had made your money, and you were down against an Australian player. I can't remember her name. Terrible. You may remember it, and I was commentating on AO radio, and I said to Chris Bowers, Why did she need this? You were dying out there. We spoke about it. You remember the match? Can you pick up on that? It was four days of Australian heat like we probably had never known. You caught the end of it, and you were way down, probably a set or a break down, and you refused to just give in, which would have been so easy.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I tend to forget those matches very quickly. There were certainly a few of those in Australia, especially in the heat.

I think, look, some of those moments -- not necessarily the exact particulars of the match, but I do look back at the moment of that physical exhaustion where you know that you've given everything you've had, where you ran for every ball, you pumped every fist, you exerted yourself to a level you didn't know was possible mentally and physically.

As I look back, I think those are the moments that I am very proud of, because I may not have won all those matches, but I do think I learned more lessons from those matches than most of the matches that I won.

I think it's when you end up doing your best work is when you are not at your best, when you are hungry for more, when you go back to the drawing board and you face your team and you face your coaches, and you do it with an honesty and vulnerability that involves saying, We messed up and we weren't the winners at the tend of the day, and what do we do now? How do we get better? Where do we improve? Because if we don't make those changes now, we're never going to make them.

I crafted my teams around making those decisions. I hired people that I would be comfortable losing with. There's an important part of the process, because I think we can all -- we're all very good at celebrating. We can lift and cheers, but at the end of the match when you had it and were ready to win and you just didn't, you have to be able to face that person, that team and say, We failed today. To do it with people you respect was really important for me.

Q. I want to go back to June 2004 just before Wimbledon. Who was that 17-year-old? Who was she then? What would you tell her now?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Hmm, well, a couple of weeks before that Wimbledon, I was in Birmingham, and I remember it very clearly. I was watching the French Open final in my little hotel room with no spaces for my suitcases. I was literally watching it while sitting on my suitcase and a little TV, and I watched Myskina win the French Open.

I wouldn't use the word angry, but I expected myself to be there. I really wanted to be. I had just lost in the quarterfinal in that tournament, and that little competitor in me was, like, I want to be that, I should be that. I said it to myself, and that was like the little voice.

You know, it's never easy losing. I was excited, because it was the first time I reached the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam. There was a lot of momentum. I went to Birmingham, head down. I won singles. I won doubles. I played those ten matches, and I think they were really instrumental in that trajectory of winning Wimbledon.

Q. This is for Mike and Bob. You know, today is about celebrating you guys and your accomplishments in the past, but I want to ask a question that has a little bit of the future and a little bit of the past. I'm curious if you were able to see any of the mixed doubles at the US Open this week and what you thought of it and what you thought of the winners? I'm curious about your 2005 lawsuit the ATP and if you can tie any of that into what happened this week and where doubles is today?

MIKE BRYAN: Here we go. Good to see you again, Doug (laughing).

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Welcome to the chat.

MIKE BRYAN: No, yeah, we were watching the mixed. We were interested to see how it was going to look. It looked great. The fans were out. It's on TV, which was cool. Obviously there's more attention, which I think the US Open wanted. I mean, we were interested, right? It was a trial. I would say it went pretty well.

In our hearts we were rooting for the doubles players. We wanted to see Vavassori and Errani do it, because we feel like the best doubles players, when they're out there and doing the right thing, they have an advantage over the singles players. There are star power in that draw, but we knew it.

Yeah, there's team doubles versus team singles now, because it's pretty divided. But you know, I think it's good in the grand scheme of things for doubles. It was on ESPN. P Mac and Johnny Mac are calling doubles. That's pretty cool.

Regarding the lawsuit, it was 20 years ago, right? Yeah, 20 years ago. A long time ago. Yeah, you have to tend to doubles. It does get put on the back burner if you don't look after it. It's just not on TV like the singles, so it can be forgotten.

There could be some tweaks down the line that can make it more exciting, and we've been kind of in some of those discussions. Yeah, it's a huge part of the game. I hope it's not going anywhere.

I guess we're going to still stay in the Hall even if they yank doubles.

DAN FABER: Done deal.

Q. You're a mom. Theo is 3 years old. I think it's so tough for women. It's changed a lot. What did you discover about yourself, maybe your parents, their way after Theo was born?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: That's a really good question. I think as a first-time parent, you learn a lot. You're surprised a lot. You know, you care so much about this little human being. You realize how vulnerable they are, especially in the first year of their life, but also how much influence and impact you have.

In some ways it's beautiful, but I think it also adds a lot of pressure on parents. I'm very fortunate that I can and that I can choose the times when I'm with him. You know, we have family that help a lot when we work and we travel, but I'm so fortunate that I get to watch him grow up and become this little character.

There are just so many sides of both myself and Alexander that we see in him, and it's really beautiful. It's the most challenging job, role that I've had in my life. Every decision that you make is with him in mind. I think every parent can relate to that. But it's hard work, there's no doubt about it.

Q. My one question is for the whole panel I guess, but it's what's one lesson from tennis that still shapes how you approach challenges today? Then something a little bit on the fun side. I just wondered if you all ever thought about dating each other before you were with somebody?

THE MODERATOR: Whoa.

KIM CLIJSTERS: What?

THE MODERATOR: Would you like to repeat that most inappropriate last part of that question?

Q. I didn't think it was inappropriate, because it was when they were single. If they ever considered dating each other maybe?

BOB BRYAN: I was probably married by the time you got on tour.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I was so surprised by the second question that I forgot the first.

I think one aspect -- just to answer your first question. They can take care of the other question. I think, you know, leaning into the hard stuff has always been a lesson that I learned.

We're now faced with so many distractions in the way of opportunities, like when things get a little tougher. I notice it when I'm doing workouts now, because I have an excuse to get out of it, whereas for so many years, 28 years of my life, when I did anything that involved my game, I was from the first second to the last second, I was dedicated, committed. Now I feel like most times I have an excuse to say, Well, you know, I don't need to finish those reps. But I often think back to that discipline that I had, and I'm, like, No, actually lean into feeling a bit uncomfortable.

I still think of that a lot, because that was my life, and now I have the chance for it not to be part of my routine. Yet, I still think it's important to push yourself in moments when it is a little uncomfortable.

BOB BRYAN: I feel like one lesson we learned along this career, you know, through the juniors and then college, we had a great coach Dick Gould, who we're going to talk about tomorrow in our speech and some of the stuff we learned from him, but just doing everything to your full ability. Whether it's a practice, you know, don't sit there and be on your phone and drink too much water. Just give everything 100%, whether it's a practice, a match, a career. If you can do that, then you have no regrets.

So you want to leave it all out there, like Maria did on the court. Then you can go in your locker room and shake the hand of your coach and move on. But if you're not putting in the work and doing the daily little things, then yeah, you're going to be up at night thinking about all that stuff.

MIKE BRYAN: I would say one thing is just you've got to be open-minded, and you've got to keep improving. I think we finished No. 1 in '03, but if we would have stayed the same, there's no way we would have been in the top 100 ten, 15 years later. We had to keep improving. The game gets better.

You have to figure out ways to look yourself in a mirror after a loss and, okay, say, What could I have done better? You have to learn how to lose, too. We lost, you know, 300, 400 matches, right? Those all sting, but we were very open with our communication after and get in a little powwow and say, Okay, we can do this better, and then work on it the next day.

BOB BRYAN: You're asking if we dated or we wanted to date?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Let's just skip that question.

BOB BRYAN: Let's move on.

THE MODERATOR: I think we're going to gracefully move on.

BOB BRYAN: Two different decades. I might have had kids by the time you started playing on the tour.

Q. Now that you guys are on the other side and attending Grand Slams, what have you learned about being a spectator and kind of seeing it from the other side? Are there any surprises of what it's like to go to a Grand Slam from the spectator side, like dos and don'ts that you have figured out now?

BOB BRYAN: It's way more relaxed.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: You can actually drink during.

MIKE BRYAN: We used to walk into these tournaments with tunnel vision, so serious, and you're on edge, right? You have your next match. You are just thinking about, okay, when is my practice? You get a broader perspective, and you can kind of look around and appreciate it.

Like, we never walked the grounds of these tournaments, because you're just going right to the locker room, and you're out. Now it's really cool to see the operation and how much goes on.

Q. What advice would you give to first-time Grand Slam goers?

BOB BRYAN: I would say go early in the tournament.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Go watch them practice.

BOB BRYAN: Yeah, watch the practices.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I think practices are just so interesting to learn about kind of the process, right, and then also the dynamic with the team. It's one of the few times where you can actually see how the player interacts with the team and what's their -- because now teams are larger and a lot more people are involved. Maybe when I played, the coach was the main voice, right, and everyone else did their thing. Like the physio treated after. You did fitness with whoever.

But now it's all very collaborative. Everyone has something to say, whether it's good or bad, but that's something that I've seen shift.

I think to watch the dynamic, and that's where -- I think that's where victories are built. I would say, yeah, spend a lot of time there.

DAN FABER: I'm not quite sure the Bryan brothers are spectators, because every tournament I go to you're running all over the place from court to court to court, pro-ams, and doing things for charities. It's really, really impressive.

MIKE BRYAN: Busy bees.

Q. A question for Bob. Bob, Davis Cup meant so much to you as a player. How is it now as a Captain? You're looking ahead. You have a match in a few weeks. How is that for you to view Davis Cup now?

BOB BRYAN: Davis Cup to us meant everything during our career. It was one of the reasons why we wanted to be pros or play doubles.

So to be involved in any way is an honor. Obviously as Captain, it's awesome to see it from the bench and to see our guys and the camaraderie they have. We have a great generation of Americans who really all love each other and truly want each other to win, and they're all committed to playing Davis Cup.

Our team was released last week, and we have the top four Americans on the roster. We're pumped for Delray Beach. It's a couple of days after the US Open. I hope all you guys come on down. Call Mike for tickets.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I might skip that one.

BOB BRYAN: You're going to skip it? Okay. Anyway, it's going to be a little warm, but you know, there's nothing like Davis Cup. There's just that atmosphere and the passion that you see out there from the guys. It brings out something a little special.

Q. I interviewed Ash Barty a lot through her career, and she retired so young, but she always said, Tennis will not define who I am. It's an interesting statement. I've thought about that a lot, because it is such a small part of your lifetime, even though it's been such a huge part. How do you think about sort of that statement now that you're out of the hot pressure sort of cooker environment of playing competitive sport?

MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot more to everyone up here and everyone here beyond their role and their job and what they do and kind of the identity they create in public. I think that's great she said that.

I believe that that's true, but when we retired, it is tough, right? It's something you've done your whole life every day. You've shot for these goals. Everything is structured. You're actually in this safe, little bubble of the tour, too.

When I retired, I had kids. I realized, there's a lot more to life, and the world is a huge place, and you kind of got to knock down some of these walls of your identity, and that might be tough, right?

But yeah, that's a deep statement. You want to riff on that?

BOB BRYAN: Maria does.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: It doesn't define you, but I certainly think it shapes you. It's a huge part of your identity, and I don't think anyone should apologize for it, because there were too many sacrifices made and too much work put in to not let it guide your future. It's a huge part of -- certainly a huge part of my identity, my own personal identity building.

I learned so much. I learned much more than just hitting forehanded and backhanded. Coming in facing you guys for several years, I mean, teaches you a level of, I would say, professionalism, maturity. Having to answer really hard questions in the moments of being very vulnerable. I mean, losing in front of millions of people and then 30 minutes after, sometimes we push it to an hour, and having to say, You know, I really messed up today. Yeah, I know many of you expected me to win, and I didn't.

So having finding the right words for that, I think it teaches you a lot. It humbles you. It gives you perspective, and there's no doubt that all those lessons are part of your future.

Q. I have a question for you, Maria. You became a champion and also businesswoman and a brand before the social media era, the TikTok era, became such a big part of the athlete's life. If you ask players today, they're, like, Oh, I would love what Maria did back in the day. I'm just wondering, you look at it, do you feel like, oh, there's so much more opportunities right now, it's fantastic, or like, well, I dodged a bullet?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I think ultimately you can't forget what your core work is, what your core mission is. I think you're absolutely right. There are more opportunities. There's a lot more engagement. Fans get to see you from many different perspectives and avenues and whether it's social media or all the fan engagements that the individual tournaments put on.

All of that is fantastic, but you also need to preserve your energy for what truly matters. I mean, I think we can all agree that the more that these players win, the more opportunities they'll get, and what they choose to do with their opportunities is a very individual choice.

I understand both sides of it, because you want to maximize your earnings, and you want to maximize your potential, but you also want to preserve your quality, and your quality is what makes you a champion.

Q. A not-too-serious question. You guys, the trademark 'chest bump' celebration, how did it get started? Whose idea was it? Were there any epic fails?

BOB BRYAN: Yeah, look, we talked about this last night. Yeah, when we showed up to Stanford, the Jensens were at their peak. Those guys were a huge draw. We saw them play. We even wore their temporary tattoo at one stage.

But yeah, we had a great point in one of our first matches against Cal, and we threw in a chest bump. The fraternity brothers in the front row kept calling for it time after time. We were on the cover of the "Stanford Daily News" with that chest bump, so it became our thing on the farm.

Then we brought it on the tour and took a little heat early on from the veterans, but yeah, it stuck. So we tried to throw in at least one if we were going to win a match to keep everyone happy.

MIKE BRYAN: Fails?

BOB BRYAN: There were fails. Mike said he broke his sternum. I don't know. He didn't have surgery, but he said he was hurting.

MIKE BRYAN: I was hurting to breathe.

BOB BRYAN: There were some photo shoots where we were doing 150 of these a day. That's probably why I have a metal hip.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: You've got to get the shot.

Q. For Maria, you seemed early on to have really great business savvy. How did you choose to embark on your ventures, and did you ever feel overwhelmed by your dual interests in tennis and business?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I never felt overwhelmed, because I knew where my ultimate passion was, but I also knew that as a woman, I had a certain time frame. I was very well aware of that from a young age.

It was very important to me. I made a conscious effort of setting up meetings from a very early age to make sure that I had a foundation as strong as it possibly could to set me up for the next stage of my life. I didn't know if that was going in my 20s, in my 30s. You just don't know as an athlete.

As a woman, you might have other interests. You might want to start a family. You might get injured. You might just want to call it quits. I mean, there are so many variables in sport.

I was also very interested in it. I realized that it's very important to be curious, to grow. There might be interests you thought you were interested in, and then you just lose interest in those. You have to find what works.

I've always identified many parallels in business with sport. They're both very team-oriented. They're very competitive. You don't have that match point feel, but God, when you get a deal done, it's a pretty special feeling.

So yeah, I think all those qualities I felt like and because there were so many brands that I worked, and I was actually in the meetings with them learning from these incredibly talented individuals. I got to selfishly learn from them and kind of grow my own knowledge.

Q. Just want to do ask you, and Bob you sort of allude to do this a little bit walking around the grounds and seeing the museum, but for all three of you, are you starting to get that feeling like it is Hall of Fame weekend when you walk the grounds? What makes Newport the perfect setting for this?

MIKE BRYAN: Yeah, we're definitely getting that feeling. This is a sacred place, just seeing the history. It has kind of a Wimbledon feel to it, which is really cool.

Starting to get a little bit nervous, anxious. I had to, like -- usually before big Davis Cup matches a couple of days out I would have a bad night's sleep, and last night, you know, four hours tossing and turning. So starting to think about it.

Yeah, just all the festivities and just the lead-up and journey to Newport, it's been a really cool, fun ride. Yeah, excited for kind of the culmination tomorrow.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: I just arrived yesterday and just got a tour of the museum just before entering this press conference. It's iconic.

There is the feeling that you have to walk through those halls and just you realize you're a small part of such a bigger piece. This history of our game and all the athletes that just accomplished what they have, it's really special.

It's so rare to reconnect with people that were a big part of your career. Most of my team members will be joining tomorrow. A few of them were there yesterday, and I just become like a teenager. I get so giddy. I'm so excited.

I formed the most amazing relationships, partnerships with these people. Now we obviously have moved on. We have different lives. So to just reconnect with everyone that has shaped your career is -- I didn't realize how special that would feel. That's been the most beautiful part of the last 24 hours for me.

THE MODERATOR: What a lovely way to close. Thank you. Thanks to all three of you for sharing those thoughts. Dan, thank you for being with us.

There is obviously so much more celebration to come this weekend. We'll see all of you and, of course, our incoming Hall of Famers tomorrow night as they're formally inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Thank you for joining us.