Agassi Tennis Quotes & Sayings

First of all, let me say, 1:15 in the morning, for 20,000 people to still be here, I wasn't the winner, tennis was. That's awesome. I don't know if I've ever felt so good here before. — Andre Agassi

You know my dad pushed me to believe that I was going to be the best. I just never thought of life without tennis, even looking forward. — Andre Agassi

Tennis is at an amazing time when you've got two of the best players ever to play the game. You can argue the two very best playing in the same generation. It's a rivalry I think that we've never seen in our sport. — Andre Agassi

But, I would say when I was four years old and I was at the Alan King Tennis Tournament and I was hitting with all the pros that would come to town. They would get me on the court or take notice and that stayed with me. — Andre Agassi

I've been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep. — Andre Agassi

Tennis is one of the only sports in America where the sport doesn't grow with the size of the person - it just forces you to swallow the whole pill. — Andre Agassi

My father actually moved out from Chicago just so he could play tennis 365 days a year, so it was - it was a place we played every day. We played before school. We played after school. We woke up. We played tennis. We brushed our teeth in that order. — Andre Agassi

I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis. — Andre Agassi

Tennis is the loneliest sport — Andre Agassi

The finish line at the end of a career is no different from the finish line at the end of a
match. The objective is to get within reach of that finish line, because then it gives off a magnetic force. When you're close, you can feel that force pulling you, and you can use that force to get across. But just before you come within range, or just after, you feel another force, equally strong, pushing you away. It's inexplicable, mystical, these twin forces, these contradictory energies, but they both exist. I know, because I've spent much of my life seeking the one, fighting the other, and sometimes I've been stuck, suspended, bounced like a tennis ball between the two. — Andre Agassi

I go to New York City, the Tournament of Champions, a significant milestone because it's a clash of the top players in the world. Once more I square off against Chang, who's developed a bad habit since we last met. Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God - credits God - for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang's box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke. — Andre Agassi

Freed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic. — Andre Agassi

I always felt tennis and winning was a byproduct of doing everything right. — Andre Agassi

The great part about tennis is you can't run out the clock ... As long as we were still playing, I had a chance. — Andre Agassi

Walking to the net, I'm certain that I've lost to the better man, the Everest of the next generation. I pity the young players who will have to contend with him. I feel for the man who is fated to play Agassi to his Sampras. Though I don't mention Pete by name, I have him uppermost in my mind when I tell reporters: It's real simple. Most people have weaknesses. Federer has none. — Andre Agassi

Tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love - the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. — Andre Agassi

My feelings are Yevgeny Kafelnikov should take his prize money when he is done here and go and buy some perspective. — Andre Agassi

My only good result in 1997 was marrying Brooke Shields. — Andre Agassi

It's no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it's all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It's our choice. — Andre Agassi

Hitting a ball dead perfect - the only peace. — Andre Agassi

No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, but tennis players talk to themselves-and answer. Tennis players look like lunatics in a public square. — Andre Agassi

Sex doesn't interfere with your tennis; it's staying out all night trying to find it that affects your tennis. — Andre Agassi

I didn't cry when they buried my father - I wouldn't let myself. I didn't cry when they buried my sister. On Thursday night, with my family asleep upstairs, my eyes filled as Agassi and Marcos Baghdatis played out the fifth set of their moving second-round match. — Greg Garber

I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have. — Andre Agassi

Tennis is a very objective sport in the sense that the scoreboard doesn't lie. — Andre Agassi

We start the year on the other side of the world, at the Australian Open, and then just chase the sun. — Andre Agassi

I don't always choose to stay fit by playing tennis, because that comes with its own wear-and-tear. — Andre Agassi

First of all, in any sport where you can measure distance, height speed and all of that, you see how athletes have changed their sport and made it better. I believe, with every generation, the sport has improved. Certainly, in the men's game, that has been the case. I think that I played Pete [Sampras] at his best, I played Roger [Federer] at his best.. I believe wholeheartedly that Roger and [Rafael] Nadal have pushed the game much further than myself or Pete ever did. Their options on the tennis court are considerably more than ours. — Andre Agassi

Standing at the bathroom mirror, toweling off, I stare at my face. Red eyes, gray stubble - a face totally different from the one with which I started. But also different from the one I saw last year in this same mirror. Whoever I might be, I'm not the boy who started this odyssey, and I'm not even the man who announced three months ago that the odyssey was coming to an end. I'm like a tennis racket on which I've replaced the grip four times and the strings seven times - is it accurate to call it the same racket? — Andre Agassi

It's shocking how little there is to do with tennis when you're just thinking about nothing except winning every point. — Andre Agassi

The day after I turn pro, Philly gets a call from Nike. They want to meet with me about an endorsement deal. Philly and I meet the Nike man in Newport beach, at a restaurant called the Rusty Pelican. His name is Ian Hamilton.
I call him Mr. Hamilton, but he says I should call him Ian. He smiles in a way that makes me trust him instantly. Philly, however, remains wary.
Boys, Ian says, I think Andre has a very bright future.
Thank you.
I'd like Nike to be a part of that future, to be a partner in that future.
Thank you.
I'd like to offer you a two-year contract.
Thank you.
During which time Nike will provide all your gear, and pay you $20,ooo.
For both years?
For eacvh year.
Ah.
Philly jumps in. What would Andre have to do in exchange for this money?
Ian looks confused. Well, he says, Andre would have to do what Andre has been doing, son. Keep being Andre. And wear Nike stuff. — Andre Agassi

When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you're doing? You're chasing something that doesn't exist. You're making everyone around you miserable.
You're making yourself miserable. Perfection? There's about five times a year you wake up perfect, when you can't lose to anybody, but it's not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It's the other times. It's all about your head, man.
-Brad Gilbert — Andre Agassi

Tennis was always sort of a - a learning. It was a vehicle for me to discover a lot about myself. And the things that I sort of discovered at times I not only didn't want to see it for myself but I certainly didn't want millions of people to see it. — Andre Agassi

Pride is bad, stress is good. I don't want to feel confident. I want to feel rage. Endless, all consuming rage. — Andre Agassi

My accomplishments do not live up to my tennis game. Most people have to work really hard and win some big matches, and then they get money and popularity. For me it has been the reverse of everybody else. The exact opposite. — Andre Agassi

One answer to why public interest in men's tennis has been on the wane in recent years is an essential and unpretty thugishness about the power-baseline style that's become dominant on the tour. Watch Agassi closely sometime ... he's amazingly absent of finesse, with movements that look more like a heavy-metal musician's than an athlete's ... what a top PBer really resembles is film of the old Soviet Union putting down a rebellion. It's awesome, but brutally so, with a grinding, faceless quality about its power that renders that power curiously dull and empty. — David Foster Wallace

I tell the players: You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause-from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end. — Andre Agassi

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement ... — Andre Agassi

People don't ask Andre Agassi, 'You know you're the No. 1 tennis player in the world ... have you thought about polo?' — Rob Schneider