Lendl Quotes & Sayings

Many tennis coaches are enablers. They need the job more than the player needs the coach, and if the coach needs the job more than the player needs the coach, he can't effect change. — Ivan Lendl

You know how kids are. They like to do what parents do. — Ivan Lendl

Olympic gold is obviously right up there with a grand slam. It's a big win. You can say it's more, you can say it's less, you can say it's equal. It's very much up there. — Ivan Lendl

If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can. — Ivan Lendl

You have to focus on the process. You cannot be glued to the results. — Ivan Lendl

You can never guarantee the wins but you can guarantee that you give it 100%. That way you can always look back and feel comfortable, as a player or a coach. — Ivan Lendl

I don't make a habit of watching tennis matches, but I try to watch all the major finals. I try to make time for that. So unless I have something going with the kids where I can't, I try to watch, and I enjoy that. — Ivan Lendl

I like to compete. — Ivan Lendl

Tennis is not like other sports where the coach is hired by an independent entity, and that makes a huge difference in the dynamic. — Ivan Lendl

But to be fair, if you take players from my era to now, the game has changed and the players have many more shots. They use them differently than we did. The speed of the game has changed. — Ivan Lendl

Ivan Lendl is a robot, a solitary, mechanical man who lives with his dogs behind towering walls at his estate in Connecticut. A man who so badly wants to have a more human image that he's having surgery to remove the bolts from his neck. — Tony Kornheiser

Lendl has remained throughout as calm as the proverbial iceberg. — Dan Maskell

Many times the players get in there and it's just about as well as they could have done, and other times they get in there and they favorites and they don't win. — Ivan Lendl

Not winning at Wimbledon is not going to bother me forever. — Ivan Lendl

Tennis is basically a game where you try to create an opportunity for yourself to finish the point, because you can't wait for the opponent to miss anymore. Well, if you create an opportunity and don't take advantage of it, you let the opponent back to even, then you are just starting the point over, so you have to take advantage of them. — Ivan Lendl

It's very nice to see when somebody who wanted to work hard and is willing to put the work in gets rewarded for it. — Ivan Lendl

I had true rivalries. Not only did I want to beat my opponent, but I didn't want to let him up, either. I had a rivalry with Mac, Lendl, Borg. Everybody knew there was tension between us, on court and off. That's what's really ingrained in my mind: 'This is real. This isn't a soft rivalry.' There were no hugs and kisses. — Jimmy Connors

I'm certainly not sorry that there were some things I missed. You may think you're missing something at that time but later when you look at it, you didn't miss anything. — Ivan Lendl

In tennis you move a lot. Golf you don't. In tennis, you can have a bad half-hour, but you can't in golf. You can lose the first set in tennis and still win. — Ivan Lendl

If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them. — Ivan Lendl

I was between 2 and 3 in the world for two, three years. That's not exactly where I wanted to be. — Ivan Lendl

Because in order to beat Jimmy, I had to get around the ball a little bit quicker so I wasn't always on defensive and catching the ball on last stride, that I had little more time. Once I was able to get little bit quicker, then it has helped me a lot. — Ivan Lendl

Too many people asking too many questions in tennis. Golf is better. — Ivan Lendl

I think talent is dangerous to have if you take it for granted. If you use it well and put hard work with it together, it's hard to catch that guy. And I think that's what you're seeing right now. — Ivan Lendl

Ivan Lendl's never going to be a great player on grass. The only time he comes to the net is to shake your hand. — Goran Ivanisevic

I believe the brain is like a muscle - like any other it can be improved. — Ivan Lendl

The way I look at the top five, (Rod) Laver, (Roger) Federer, myself, Borg and (Ivan) Lendl. I think those five guys dominated their generations better than anyone. Maybe Roger will dominate better than any one of the other four. Maybe I put Andre (Agassi) as kind of six through 10 with, you know, (John) McEnroe and (Jimmy) Connors, kind of those guys. That's kind of how I see it. — Pete Sampras

Jakob Hlasek is six foot two and built like a halfback, his blond hair in a short square Eastern European cut, with icy eyes and cheekbones out to here: He looks like either a Nazi male model or a lifeguard in hell and seems in general just way too scary ever to try to talk to. His backhand is a one-hander, rather like Ivan Lendl's, and watching him practice it is like watching a great artist casually sketch something. I keep having to remember to blink. — David Foster Wallace

You know, you just go out there, do your best. Sometimes it's good enough and sometimes it is, and sometimes it stays your only one and sometimes you win bunch others behind it. — Ivan Lendl

Many Czech people are very talented. They can do many things, but when they get to a certain level, they are satisfied. I am not like that, thank God. — Ivan Lendl

I enjoy life. I always enjoy jokes. — Ivan Lendl

Once you win, you have no doubt that you can win. So you have gone through it once, and you can do it again. — Ivan Lendl

I had great success with Ivan Lendl. Was he a perfect coach? No. Was he a very good coach? Yeah. He had some very strong qualities and some things that weren't so good. — Andy Murray

My serve and my forehand I pretty much always had, but my backhand was a made backhand. I worked on it for years. — Ivan Lendl

He's a haircut and a forehand. — Ivan Lendl

If you go to school and practice for five days a week, it still gives you two days you can go and see your friends, you can go to the movies, you do whatever you like to do. — Ivan Lendl

People may say I developed an iron will, but what really happened is that I made myself much fitter. I think an iron will is always supported by fitness. — Ivan Lendl

But it's very difficult, I can tell you I played the Czech Open a few times and it's very difficult just to go on to a scene where the course is prepared differently when the greens are fast and he's not used to it and they're hard as a rock and he's not used to it. — Ivan Lendl

I certainly don't lose any sleep if I lose a tennis match. — Ivan Lendl

I have seriously thought about retiring, but that was on a good day. On a bad day I've thought about killing myself. — Ivan Lendl

If you become great, then you can become happy. If you're happy first, it's much more difficult to be great. — Ivan Lendl

I just travel all the time. And I was just looking at the schedules now and starting the first week of October I will be every weekend with somebody at tournaments through Christmas. So it gets very difficult to just go away and not do that. — Ivan Lendl

I got bad calls every match, and I never got an apology. So I thought it was rather strange. — Ivan Lendl

If you lose, it hurts, but as long as you have fought hard, you can still feel good about yourself. — Ivan Lendl

It's flattering to be compared in any way to Tiger Woods, because he's the best player in the world. — Ivan Lendl

I think if you look at Andre then and now, you look at two different models. Of course it's personal preference, I think Andre now is a great role model for the kids. He has started training differently than he was before, and so on and so on. — Ivan Lendl