By Chris Oddo | Monday, March 24, 2014

What were the big names talking about during the first week of the Sony Open? Read on to find out...

One of the grittiest warriors that the game has ever seen doesn't have time to count up his victories. He leaves that to the statisticians and just laces 'em up and plays. After notching his 600th ATP victory in the first round, here is what Lleyton Hewitt had to say about the milestone.

“To tell you the truth, I totally forgot.”

After her dismal performance against Caroline Wozniacki on Saturday night in Miami, Sloane Stephens isn't about to let you see her cry about it.

“Not really anything I'm going to cry too much over. I'm just going to get back to work and get ready for Charleston next week.”

The state of American men's tennis is in disarray, but what can John Isner do but take care of his own business?

“The state is not the greatest it's ever been. That's for sure. You know, we have seen times where you have, I don't know, three guys in the top 10, something like that. It's crazy. Or 10 guys in the top 50, so forth and so on. It's not like that right now. You know, I can't really say why. It's none of my concern really, you know, to really worry about the rest of those guys.”

He's only dropped 10 points on serve through the first two matches (against Ivo Karlovic and Thiemo de Bakker), and this is what Roger Federer had to say about his serve.

“Right now I'm doing a good job. But then again, you know, this wasn't Andre Agassi on the other side, or Djokovic.”

Venus Williams prides herself on being a tough customer, no matter how well she's playing or if she is about to fall down from exhaustion. She touched on that in press after taking out Casey Dellacqua in the round of 16.

“I mean, if I go down it's never easy. At least my opponent knows they have to go to the end of the earth to take me out no matter what the circumstances, usually.”

After her 6-1, 6-3 victory over Coco Vandeweghe on Monday, Serena Williams gaves her thoughts on what it means to be sexy and strong.

“I think it's really important for females to realize that you can be strong but still be sexy at the same time. There is nothing wrong with being strong and beating up on the boys.”

Want to know if Roger Federer is playing better? Ask Novak Djokovic. Here's what Nole said about Roger's form of late in a pre-tournament presser.

“Maybe it's the racquet or something else, but he definitely has more depth on that shot. He's going more for his topspins rather than slicing it."

Andy Murray will miss having Ivan Lendl help him deal with mental challenges more than anything else, he told reporters early last week.

“The thing that he was brought in to do was to help me get over the line in the big events, and that's what he did. So what improvements he made to my game, I don't think is, you know, how I hit the ball or how I hit certain shots is that relevant. My game was kind of there. It was the mental side in dealing with those pressure situations that he was there to help with. That was the biggest influence he had on my game.”

Five-time Miami finalist Maria Sharapova is hoping that the second week will help her get match tough. It's been a challenge for her thus far this year, she says.

“You know, that match strength, when you're, you know, deep into the match and also in the later stages of the matches, I think THAT'S hurt me a little bit in these last couple of months.But I got to work through that. Nothing's going to come to me. It's a challenge that I have ahead of me, and I have to face it.”