Newcombe Quotes & Sayings

I'd also made the first tennis team. I was number two player in the school at 11 years of age and that didn't sit very well with people. — John Newcombe

As much as I loved Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Junior Gilliam, and Don Newcombe, I loved watching Willie Mays play more than all of them combined, even if he played for the 'bad guys!' — Cheech Marin

I had started my love affair with Wimbledon. — John Newcombe

That match was late evening and I had the experience of the electricity of the Centre Court because it was packed, a full house for the whole match. It had been a great year for me, first time there and I had the full taste of Wimbledon. — John Newcombe

I don't have to support Bibi, his government or any other conservative organization in order to come and play music in Israel, for people who want to come and listen to music. I think it's b******t to ask me to boycott Israel and not America. It's interesting that some people choose to pick on Israel and isolate her ... I was invited to perform and that's why I'll perform, as long as the border is open and I'm welcomed. I'm just coming to play. — Anton Newcombe

I was in the main draw from the start, my opening match was on Court One against Jan Eric Lundquist of Sweden who was about eight in the world at the time. — John Newcombe

People think this is all about the top players hitting tenins balls and they talk about technique and strategy and how important that is. But they don't understand the essence of competition. This is one-on-one, two players out there fighting each other with everything they have, trying to bring the best out of themselves. And the difference at this level of the game is all in the head and in the heart. — John Newcombe

The strongest and most dangerous enemy you will ever face is a negative attitude. Learn to recognize when it is trying to invade your body and mind, then simply refuse it entry. — John Newcombe

I am a bohemian person. I don't speak German, and I live in a foreign country where all the signs are in German. I did that deliberately. I'm like a ghost. Look at how much media and advertising you're subjected to, this mindless chatter of advertising. I just block it out so effortlessly because it's all a foreign language to me. It's really a good thing for my head, living in Berlin. — Anton Newcombe

I throw the ball as hard as ever, but it just takes longer to get to the plate. — Don Newcombe

So there was a fire inside me. And that fire inside you, it can be turned into a negative form or a positive form. And I gradually realised that I had this fire and that it had to be used in a positive way. — John Newcombe

They wrote it that my moustache was insured for 13 million. — John Newcombe

By the time I got to the hospital, I certainly realised that I had a problem because I couldn't write or print at that time, which lasted luckily only about four months. I'd gone numb here and on my tongue and the right foot a little bit. — John Newcombe

It's actually what I consider legalised cheating because one of the great senses that you have on a tennis court is your ability to hear the ball come off your opponent's strings [on Sharapova grunting — John Newcombe

Your game is only as good as your second serve — John Newcombe

Well, he can't be dumb, I mean, because he's been president for four years and he's president again, so you're going to get caught out if you're really bad, aren't you? Unless millions and millions of Americans are dumb. — John Newcombe

At Wimbledon, the ladies are simply the candles on the cake. — John Newcombe

Listen closely, Sebastien Newcombe, ... I will only say this once. I understand the despair coursing through you. I understand the rage that is eating away at your insides like acid. If you want to lash out at me, you are welcome to do so ... But if you ever give me reason to believe you have been anything less than kind to the woman who resides here, I will strike your head from your body and you will go down in history as the only immortal I have ever killed. Nod your head that you understand me. — Dianne Duvall

The only thing you find in the middle of the road are dead animals and dumb Americans. — Anton Newcombe

I could have rolled the ball up there against Musial, and he would have pulled out a golf club and hit it out. — Don Newcombe

You know why Guns n' Roses aren't a good band? Because no black people listen to them. — Anton Newcombe

I wouldn't, a little bit frightened but throughout my life I'd learnt that when you're in the serious situations, you've got to try to stay calm. Because that's the way you get out of them. — John Newcombe

Receiving the Newcombe Medal for a third year in a row is an amazing honour. The Newcombe Medal is a great occasion for the Australian tennis community to come together and celebrate our sport, recognise people's achievements and contributions to Australian tennis. — Samantha Stosur

A few of us who are around the sixty mark don't play that much these days and if you are taking on a couple of guys in their forties it is very difficult. — John Newcombe

There was kind of a code that you had as an Australian that you never left the court losing unless you had blood all over you. That's the sort of toughness you need to compete on the world stage and I feel that our kids today just don't have it. — John Newcombe

You could say that the Hell's Angels have a bad reputation, then you talk to a biker, and he's trying to join it. It just depends upon who you're talking to about reputation. — Anton Newcombe

You know, I eat, I ate pretty well anyway so, I'm basically living the same, I just curtailed the stupidity. — John Newcombe

I was a pretty feisty young kid. — John Newcombe

You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which ... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit. — John Newcombe

I'm influenced by the music of the '60s. It's a mishmash of everything. To me, psychedelic can be all the way to a DJ. House music can be very psychedelic. Flying Lotus is very psychedelic. Even though it's urban and technological, it's also mind-expanding, anything-can-go mishmash. — Anton Newcombe

I have a treasured set of matched grain crosscut horns made for me by master American carver Jim Cooke, cut yin-yang from the same block of briar he waited five years to find. — Rick Newcombe

I chose to stay with tennis and they didn't understand that at the school. — John Newcombe

As long as I could pitch a little, no one cared that I was getting drunk. — Don Newcombe