Q. Do you remember the very first time you watched Serena play, and what was your initial impression back when she was a teenager with braids, coming on the scene, and everyone was wondering who these sisters are? 

JOHN McENROE:  The first time I saw Serena I believe was in 1989.  I was coached at that time by a guy named Paul Cohen.  He worked a little bit with an unheralded little kid named Pete Sampras who I saw.  I don't know how he knew Richard Williams.  But he brought Serena and Venus Williams where I was practicing.  I'm guessing they were eight and nine.  I saw them before that.  I was told by Richard and Paul Cohen that they were going to be future No. 1 players.  I said, Call me in 10 years.  Both of them turned out to be absolutely 100% dead on.  We're talking about the greatest player that ever played and one of the all-time best players that ever played. 

PATRICK McENROE:  I'll say that I'd be lying if I said I remember the exact first time I saw her play.  I do have a memory of when she played out in Indian Wells, of all things.  Obviously she made her reappearance there this year, which I thought was a great move by her.  I remember when she made that great run where she played Steffi in the final.  I think she was 18 at the time.  I think it was her first big title. 

10 years ago, like we were saying, when she was 26, I think a lot of people doubted - I know I did - and Chris Evert wrote the letter ‘Don't waste what you have, you could be one of the all time greats,’ there was much discussion she was throwing away all of her talent, going out to clubs, and would never reach this point.  Did you think at that point when Chris wrote that letter, did you ever imagine she would be at this point right now, about to reach 34, No. 1, heading into a Grand Slam possibly? 

To me personally, I think her sort of disillusionment and her problems at that time was sort of motivation.  You mentioned going out.  To me it was more about the horrible tragedy that took place with her sister.  She was like emotionally sort of just in a place where she wasn't able to go out there and enjoy her tennis, was sort of at a crossroads in a way.  I would say if I had to pick one thing that was of concern because it was such a horrible tragedy, to be able to overcome that, I think that was the biggest, most difficult thing.  Once I saw her sort of getting back, I mean you never overcome that totally, but move on in best a way you can, handle it the best you can, that slowly but surely she got more and more into realizing as she got a little bit older she had this unbelievable gift.  She can design clothes and do other stuff later, but that she's become even, as Patrick said before, more professional, more prepared than she's ever been.  That's been good for the game, very good. 

PATRICK McENROE:  When both my brother and I are asked what's wrong with American tennis, much more so American men's tennis, we need great athletes.  In addition to a lot of other issues, we need great athletes.  When you saw Venus and Serena, you saw incredible athleticism.  If their dad hadn't watched that tournament where somebody won $30,000 , got them into tennis, they could have been track stars, volleyball players, basketball players, what have you.  Thank goodness there was some tennis on television at that time that Richard Williams saw and got his daughters into tennis. 

The other thing I'll say that I remember is probably about seven, eight years ago, maybe a little less, when Serena was on one of her comebacks, or at least starting to come back, I remember saying, Serena could have the same sort of second career that Andre Agassi did.  When Agassi sort of got the wake-up call and became more professional, became obsessed with his fitness, et cetera, et cetera.  Comparatively Serena is obviously a more dominant player as far as women go compared to Agassi, who was a great player, but he wasn't dominant like she is.  To me that's exactly what she's done.  She's done everything possible in the last, you know, five, six years to win as many Majors as possible.  You got to give her a huge amount of credit.  I think one point I remember her going to Hollywood.  She wanted to be a Hollywood action star, something like that.  I think she quickly found out, Maybe that tennis thing isn't so bad.  Maybe these other things will help me in what else she does, designing clothes, going on the QVC network, which she's successful at, and I think she's successful because she's the greatest female athlete on the planet. 

JOHN McENROE:  If you had to pick a match, it was when she played on Louis Armstrong, I can't remember the exact year, but she played Clijsters.  They were both teenagers.  That match, when you looked at them, you could see that both of them were going to be tremendous champions.  You didn't realize Serena was going to be as great as she was, but that was really a tremendous match when I think they were both 16 and 17 or something like that.