Match Winning Quotes & Sayings

The coach should keep out of the way ... He is an important figure, of course, but is more likely to lose a match than win it. Matches are won by players. — Romario

You cannot turn your winning attitude on when you think you 'need it.' You must work on it every day, every practice, every match - win or lose. Focus on playing to win, not playing to lose, for there is a season of difference between the two. — John Kessel

There's only one plan in football: win you next match. — Johnny Giles

I'm really looking forward to getting back and winning some matches but I'm not thinking about the U.S. Open yet, just getting through my first match. — Greg Rusedski

I want to do the best I can right away. There's no point for me to just kind of be relaxed about it. Of course, in each match winning is out of my control, but I want to try to do the best I can as soon as I can, and I want to have 10 successful years and not five slow ones and then five good ones. — Eugenie Bouchard

Americans like a winner. If you lose, you're nothing. I'm going to win, though. It's good for the match that Spassky has a plus score against me. We've met five times. He's won three times
and we've drawn twice. But I'm a stronger player and a long match favors me. — Bobby Fischer

I just try to win the match by fighting for every point, and running down every ball. — Rafael Nadal

Nothing is more thrilling than winning a match for your team. — Virender Sehwag

I feel much more respected in Europe than I do in the States from the press and from the people. Americans expect me to win every match I play. — Pete Sampras

You have to understand, in this fight, the physical condition and technical preparation are not as important as character and will. The one who's willing to go until the end will win the match. — Ruslan Provodnikov

TCA pretends to be about raising money for charity. That's true, but only so far. If I had not taken time off from the Penn & Teller show to do The Celebrity Apprentice - if Teller and I had just done our show, gotten usual pay - I could have donated four times the amount of money that Trump had pledged to give my charity if I won the whole damn shooting match. Opportunity Village, "my" charity that helps intellectually disabled adults to enter society, got a lot of attention because I was on The Celebrity Apprentice, and that does count for something. And when I was "fired," my real bosses at Caesars, who own the Rio and the Penn & Teller Theater, said, "Oh, you wanted a quarter million for Opportunity Village? We don't have to do some jive TV show; we'll just write a check." They wrote the full winning amount to Opportunity Village and everyone was happy. — Penn Jillette

Except in a very few matches, usually with world-class performers, there is a point in every match (and in some cases it's right at the beginning) when the loser decides he's going to lose. And after that, everything he does will be aimed at providing an explanation of why he will have lost. He may throw himself at the ball (so he will be able to say he's done his best against a superior opponent). He may dispute calls (so he will be able to say he's been robbed). He may swear at himself and throw his racket (so he can say it was apparent all along he wasn't in top form). His energies go not into winning but into producing an explanation, an excuse, a justification for losing. — C. Terry Warner

If I'm winning, I have to act like I'm not bored. If it's A tough match, I have to act like I'm having A good time. I'm a drama queen. — Serena Williams

We will have to go to win. There's no other option. We have one more match. — Xabi Alonso

Shut up. Take down your pants. I'm going to mark you as mine."
Nick squeaked and held onto his belt, fighting Damian for possession of it. "Here? Everyone will hear. They'll know!"
"I want them to know," Damian said, winning the wrestling match for the belt as was inevitable that he would.
"London!" Nick gasped. "London!"
Damian stopped, his eyes clearing as he noticed how terrified Nick looked. After a long minute, he pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to scare you. I thought you'd like it. — Catt Ford

I lost the match. I blame only myself for this. There were many opportunities to win. But I missed them, no one else. — Anatoly Karpov

I'm sure Bobby won't want them to be losing the match before winning it. — Ron Atkinson

Neither winning nor losing means as much to me as knowing the crowd has enjoyed my match. Some players feel that winning is everything and that losing is a disaster. Not me. I want the spectators to take home a good memory ... — Evonne Goolagong Cawley

From one match to the next, I kept on winning. — Tracy Austin

Winning or losing, it's always something special and something you'll remember, even more so when the match was as dramatic as it was today. It's even more memorable when I see my kids there with my wife and everything. That's what touched me the most, to be quite honest. The disappointment of the match itself went pretty quickly. — Roger Federer

As an athlete, success is not just about winning; it is about working hard and giving it all you have. I have always taken one match at a time and worked hard; when I succeeded, I worked further on the aspects of the game which worked for me; when I failed, I listed out my weaknesses and worked on them. — Rohan Bopanna

I do feel that I have unfinished business in the Premier League and now is the right time to return. I considered all the other offers very carefully and I firmly believe that Chelsea is the best choice. They match my footballing ambitions with their hunger and desire to win trophies. — Cesc Fabregas

I think it is important to win a match, but I think what is even more important is the manner in which you win. — Jock Stein

We are positive about our win and we know that our match was perhaps not as physical as the other matches on the weekend, so I think we have an advantage in that we have an extra day to recover. — Naka Drotske

The man who said 'I'd rather be lucky than good' saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't and you lose. — Woody Allen

Tarrou had "lost the match," as he put it. But what had he, Rieux, won? No more than the experience of having known plague and remembering it, of having known friendship and remembering it, of knowing affection and being destined one day to remember it. So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories. But Tarrou, perhaps, would have called that winning the match. — Albert Camus

When I won Wimbledon, I said to God: just let me win this one tournament and I won't play another match. Maybe God's telling me to go home, but I don't want to go home. We are negotiating at the moment. — Goran Ivanisevic

[G]randma was always afraid of something. She set aside time each day for dread. And not nameless dread. She was quite specific about the various tragedies stalking her. She feared pneumonia, muggers, riptides, meteors, drunk drivers, drug addicts, serial killers, tornadoes, doctors, unscrupulous grocery clerks, and the Russians. The depth of Grandma's dread came home to me when she bought a lottery ticket and sat before the tv as the numbers were called. After her first three numbers were a match, she began praying feverishly that she wouldn't have the next three. She dreaded winning, for fear that her heart would give out. — J.R. Moehringer

I suppose you mean to scandalize society by announcing your betrothal to Miss Butterfield tonight."
"Of course," Oliver said, without a trace of irritation. "Unless you'd rather do it yourself. I'm more than happy to hand the office over to you, Gran. Maria and I will just nod and smile while you get all the glory for making the match."
Mercy. Talk about throwing down the gauntlet.
Mrs. Plumtree's mouth fell open. Then snapped shut. When she spoke again, her voice sounded strained, though Maria could have sworn she caught a gleam in the elderly lady's eye. "Perhaps I will. God knows you won't do it properly."
"Go ahead." His eyes said, I dare you.
There was a trace of smugness on his face now, as if he knew he was on the verge of winning.
A tense quiet fell over the carriage. Clearly Mrs. Plumtree and Oliver were each waiting for the other to back down. — Sabrina Jeffries

The Nazis were tedious in their self-righteousness and triumphalism. They were like a winning soccer team at the after-match party, getting drunker and more boring and refusing to go home. He was sick of them. Some people might say that the USSR was similar, with its secret police, its rigid orthodoxy, and its puritan attitudes to such pleasures as abstract painting and fashion. They were wrong. Communism was a work in progress, with mistakes being made on the road to a fair society. The NKVD with its torture chambers was an aberration, a cancer in the body of Communism. One day it would be surgically removed. But probably not in wartime. — Ken Follett

Every few years, in the world of sport, someone ascends to the most rarefied of all levels - the one at which it becomes news not when they win, but when they lose. It must have been like that in the early Fifties, when a tubby Italian called Alberto Ascari was stitching together nine Grand Prix wins in a row, a record not even Fangio, Clark or Senna could match. Or when the great Real Madrid side of Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas won the first five European Cup finals, between 1956 and 1960. Or when Martina Navratilova dominated Wimbledon's Centre Court, winning nine ladies' singles titles in thirteen years. The current Australian cricket team is in just such a run at present, having just completed nine consecutive victories, putting them four wins away from establishing an all-time record. And then there is Tiger Woods. — Richard Williams

Perhaps it is the fate of all great sporting performances to be forgotten somewhat if the team eventually loses. Would we care overly about VVS Laxman's 281 or Ian Botham's 149 without the efforts of Harbhajan Singh and Bob Willis who turned these great feats from potentially heroic failures to match-winning epics? — Keith Stael

In my very first Wrestlemania match, I won. 17 wins from tying the Undertaker. Don't laugh. — The Miz

If England are going to win this match, they're going to have to score a goal. — Jimmy Hill

Experience tells us that few matches are won on the back of one or two good sessions of play. To win a Test match most teams have to win and outplay the opposition for extended periods of time. — Justin Langer

It was a match I lost, rather than she won [on Serena Williams winning with an apparent cramp injury at Wimbledon — Daniela Hantuchova

You don't simply tell someone to get out there and win the tennis match. You say 'move your feet' or 'watch the fuzz on the ball' to really get into the Zen of it. You pull all that together, and then you just might hold up the Wimbledon Plate ... It's not about winning first place but bringing every element of effort to whatever you do. — Diana Nyad

It becomes tricky, and you start to think about the cramps rather than just actually what you're trying to do on the court, which is obviously win the match. — Andy Murray

The game has gone rather scrappy as both sides realise they could win this
match or lose it. — Kevin Keegan

It seems with every match I win, I get better-looking to other people. — Andy Roddick

It's always great to play at home. I won here last year and it's great to start with a win like this today. The first match was difficult and I thought it was step in the right direction. — Gustavo Kuerten

Excellence can be achieved only today - not yesterday or tomorrow, because they do not exist in the present moment. Today is the only day you have to flex your talents and maximize your enjoyment. Your challenge is to win in all aspects of life. To reach that goal, you need to set yourself up for success by winning one day at a time. Procrastination is no match for a champion. — Jim Afremow

I've known the thrill of winning a tough ball game and of winning a golf match on the last hole. But to me the biggest thrill is to win the big one - the spiritual battle of life. — Billy Graham

Mark Waugh, the most fluent and aesthetically pleasing batsman of his generation but also one of the most frustrating to watch. Often, when he appeared to be a class above the rest and to have the bowling at his mercy, he would play a lazy shot to what appeared, more often than not, an innocuous delivery. And just like that his innings would be over. To make matters worse, he didn't seem to care; he would nonchalantly wander off the field. No shaking of the head or staring back at the pitch to apportion blame. His fans had to learn to accept 30s and 40s instead of centuries and 150s. His concentration, some would say his interest, never seemed to be there in the Test arena. Despite playing some match-winning Test innings, Waugh was never quite able to shake the 'lackadaisical' tag. — Sean Ehlers

The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one's feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously. — Agnes De Mille

[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don't grow cold and cramp yourself, I hardly think you'd concern yourself with his burgeoning manhood, let alone his thighs! — A.G. Starling

My coach has said to me, "When you win a match or a tournament, you don't even think about it - the very next minute you're like". — Serena Williams

I know If I score we're going to win the match. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Elephant, beyond the fact that their size and conformation are aesthetically more suited to the treading of this earth than our angular informity, have an average intelligence comparable to our own. Of course they are less agile and physically less adaptable than ourselves
nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it. This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets
and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other. — Beryl Markham

I don't care now if I ever win a match in my life again. Whatever I do in my life, wherever I go, I'm going to be always Wimbledon champion. — Goran Ivanisevic

If you don't score you are not going to win a match. — Bobby Robson

Every team in the NFL is hard, but when we play our own division it's a fight. Our goal is to make it to the playoffs and to do that we have to win games within the division. We match up well against this division, it's just a matter of getting on the field and doing what we know we can do. — Giovani Bernard

Don't tell those coming in the final result of that fantastic match, but let's just have another look at Italy's winning goalo. — David Coleman

I would rather die in America than live in England. I would rather lose a match in America than win one in England. I have come to the conclusion that I neither mean to die soon or to lose the match! — Wilhelm Steinitz

Herein lay the rub. The Americans, like all Western armies, defined "winning" as killing the enemy and securing control over the battlefield. Their opponents in previous conflicts had generally accepted the same definition. Not so the Moros. What was important to them was the struggle and how one conducted oneself, personally and as a people, not necessarily a measurable outcome. They knew from the beginning they were no match for American firepower. It was a one-sided contest, what today is termed "asymmetric warfare," but so what? Their measure was how well one did against the odds, the more overwhelmingly they were against one, the greater the glory. And being that life is transitory anyway, what mattered most was how much courage was shown and how well did one die. The Americans and the Moros were using different score cards for the same game. To the Moros, it was they who had "won. — Robert A. Fulton

To me, the team is more important than any individual member of the squad, and the players have to realise that and accept that my priority is to pick a side with the best possible chance of winning each match. — Gerard Houllier

It's hard because you want to be able to just, okay, focus your energy on trying to win the match, but you need to then have tactics as to how you're going to deal with how you're feeling. — Andy Murray

My definition of winning at squash is playing and surviving, and I've never lost a match. — Arlen Specter

To play with ten players for over half of the match is never going to be easy against anybody, particularly on their home field. But I thought the team adjusted fairly well and at times we looked really good with only ten players. Still, it's a win, and it's a win for the Rivalry Series and I'm happy about that. — Jerry Smith

I think that that Davis Cup final made me much stronger mentally. And this preseason, I was working really hard. So today, I was really believing in myself that I can win the match anyway, that I'm going to five sets. That's so important, no, believe in yourself. — Fernando Verdasco

I feel like when I'm match tough and match hard and played a lot of matches I got that competitive winning spirit going and I can get on some rolls like I did last year. I won San Jose, Indian Wells and made the semifinals in Miami so it can happen for me. — Lleyton Hewitt