Michael Stich plays the kind of tennis that most of us can only dream about.

Languid, smooth, but devastatingly powerful, Stich won Wimbledon in 1991, an Olympic Gold medal a year later, and reached the final of two other Grand Slam tournaments (US Open in 1994 and the French Open in 1996).

It seems that there little difference between the tennis he plays on the Delta Tour of Champions these days and that which made him a household name in the early 1990's.

He still rolls that delicious backhand to whichever corner of the court he wants, and hammers his serve down with venom, but there is a more genial look to Stich these days.

The German enjoys a laugh and a joke, on and off the court, and as he showed in a question and answer session with readers of the BBC Sport website yesterday, he also has plenty to say.

He was asked if he would do anything different if he could have his career over again.

"I would probably try to concentrate a bit more on tennis than I did in my career, and just give it a better shot to win more Grand Slam titles," he said. "That's the one thing that I really miss that I didn't achieve - winning more 'Slams; and knowing that I had a chance to win all of them with my kind of style. Probably I wasn't as focused as I should have been at the time I played the tournaments. I was thrown off by things that happened outside the court and so I wasn't able to focus from 8 in the morning until 8 at night on just tennis. But that's not my personality to do that - I had other interests and I tried to do other things and I wasn't really capable of focusing 100% on tennis - but that made me the person I am, and I'm very happy being that person."

He now appreciates all the more the things that he did achieve. For instance, the doubles gold medal he won with Boris Becker at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

"At the time it didn't have the same importance because it was just one of 25 tournaments that we played throughout the year. Looking back now at the end of my career, it means a lot to me that I won the gold medal. I think I would rate it as high as winning Wimbledon, so I'm very happy I went there."

With his sublime serve and volley skills, it is perhaps unsurprising that he prefers clay to hard courts. He did reach the US Open final, but ran into Andre Agassi - the player he struggled against more than anyone throughout his career.

"I hated playing Agassi," said Stich. "For me, his was the worst game to play against. I never played him on grass or clay which would have been my best chances to beat him. On hard courts or indoors, if it was a slow court, his returns were just too good, and if I were to play him from the back of the court he was just a little bit too quick. His game didn't suit me at all."

These days, Stich runs his own company which helps people with chronic back problems, and he also went down well at Wimbledon as an expert summariser for BBC Radio 5 Live. He is also trying to qualify for The Masters Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall in London (30th November - 5th December).

To read what Stich thinks of Roger Federer, Nicolas Kiefer, Tommy Haas and the conditions at the US Open, you can read his full Fans Forum transcript on www.bbc.co.uk/tennis.