"It wasn't my plan to create such a record. All I did was put in the effort to win every match I played and it went on for weeks, months and years until my defeat to Ross Norman in Toulouse in 1986"

Humility anchors the message: a historic streak was not a blueprint but a byproduct. The focus rests on controllable elements - preparation, effort, and the next rally - rather than on the abstraction of a "record". By narrowing attention to winning the match in front of him, he sidestepped the paralysis that comes from guarding perfection. Pressure dissipates when the aim is process, not mythmaking.

The cadence "weeks, months and years" captures how greatness often accrues invisibly, one ordinary day layered upon another. What the world tallied as 555 matches without defeat, he experienced as repetition: early mornings, travel, practice courts, and the relentless recalibration required in a sport that punishes complacency. That accumulation suggests an athlete who mastered boredom and routine, not merely brilliance.

There is also an acceptance of limits. Naming the loss to Ross Norman in Toulouse is not an apology but a full stop - a recognition that every arc bends toward closure. The end does not diminish the stretch that preceded it; rather, it contextualizes it, affirming that dominance has meaning precisely because it can end. Respect for the opponent is embedded too: the streak's conclusion is shared history, not a personal failure to be hidden.

Implicitly, the statement critiques how audiences fetishize records. Legacy, it proposes, emerges when attention is tethered to daily rigor. The record kept itself because he kept himself - disciplined, adaptable, and present.

Beyond sport, the lesson is stark: extraordinary outcomes are the compounded interest of ordinary commitments. Control the inputs, accept the uncontrollable, and let time do its quiet work. When the inevitable interruption arrives, meet it with the same composure that built the run. The achievement, then, is not the number but the posture - steady, focused, and unpretentious. It suggests true greatness is quiet, cumulative, and secure enough to acknowledge an ending without losing the meaning of the journey.