Some Tennis Quotes & Sayings

Discussing cultural relativism with cultural relativists is like playing tennis with some guy who says, Your ace is just a social construct. — Mark Steyn

Following their line of vision, he found the distraction. The damn tennis team, running the perimeter of the football field in some half-assed formation, following their fearless leader. They weren't looking at the field, weren't yelling or causing a scene. Just concentrating on keeping up with Chris.
Having been a teenage boy himself, the draw was obvious. Teenage girls. Short shorts. No brainer. At thirty-four, he was past that.
Except his eyes didn't seem to get the "I'm Too Old For This" memo. They were tracking Chris like a hawk tracks a field mouse. — Jeanette Murray

But apart from that single expensive item, she stayed away from the high-dollar racks. Luxury was all well and good for a Fae prince, but what would she do with a pair of six-hundred-dollar Gucci boots? She'd be afraid to walk in them. Probably trip and break an ankle or something, and wasn't there some old fairy tale about stolen shoes that punished the thief? She knew better than most people that fairy tales had a twisted way of coming true.
She slipped into jeans and laced up tennis shoes. A sturdy pair of hiking boots went into the satchel.
She was done before he was. Figured. And when he returned, he was wearing dark, tattooed Armani jeans, with a sheer white silk tee and six-hundred dollar Gucci boots.
Which also figured. — Karen Marie Moning

There is a terrific apprehension among some people that blacks will take over the sport ... It will create problems because their behavior, speech and dress is just a completely different culture. — Arthur Ashe

Some settlers began with no implements but an ax. In conversation, the subject of axes
their ideal weight, their proper helves
was more popular than politics or religion. A man who made good axes, who knew the secrets of tempering the steel and getting the center of gravity right, received the celebrity of an artist and might act accordingly. The best ax maker in southern Indiana was "a dissolute, drunken genius, named Richardson." Men who really knew how to chop became famous, too. An ax blow requires the same timing of weight shift and wrist action as a golf swing, and as in golf those who where good at it taught others; sometimes all the men in one district learned their stroke from the same axman extraordinaire. A good stroke had a "sweetness" similar to the sound of a well-struck golf or tennis ball, and gave a satisfaction which moved the work along. — Ian Frazier

I often surprise myself. You can't plan some shots that go in, not unless you're on marijuana, and the only grass I'm partial to is Wimbledon's. — Rod Laver

While I'm more of a soccer and tennis fan myself, I still enjoying catching some football games when I get the chance. — Marcus Samuelsson

If the pupil proves to be of so perverse a disposition that he would rather listen to some idle tale than to the account of a glorious voyage or to a wise conversation, when he hears one; if he turns away from the drum-beat that awakens young ardour in his comrades, to listen to another tattoo that summons him to a display of juggling; if he does not fervently feel it to be pleasanter and sweeter to return from a wrestling-match, dusty but victorious, with the prize in his hand, than from a game of tennis or a ball, I can see no other remedy that for his tutor to strangle him before it is too late, if there are no witnesses. — Michel De Montaigne

The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle,
And some have been known to fall in it.
In tennis it's nothing, but it can be received,
And sometimes a person may win it.
Though not seen or heard it may be perceived,
Like princes or bees it's in clover.
The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle,
And without it one cannot start over. — Trenton Lee Stewart

I only ever run when there's some point to it - say, if it's in a game of tennis. — Rafael Nadal

I don't recall you playing much tennis. As for the gymnastics ... "
His sexy growl of a laugh seemed to snag Elliot in the guts. "Yeah, you do have some beautiful moves as I recall. They didn't require a lot of footwork. — Josh Lanyon

As a teenager, Monica Seles won some historic matches on the tennis court, dominating opponents and filling a room with trophies. — Don Yaeger

Every morning he went for a walk with his wife, Reine-Marie, and their German shepherd Henri. Tossing the tennis ball ahead of them, they ended up chasing it down themselves when Henri became distracted by a fluttering leaf, or a black fly, or the voices in his head. The dog would race after the ball, then stop and stare into thin air, moving his gigantic satellite ears this way and that. Honing in on some message. Not tense, but quizzical. It was, Gamache recognized, the way most people listened when they heard on the wind the wisps of a particularly beloved piece of music. Or a familiar voice from far away. — Louise Penny

The kids know what I'm doing when I exercise, and that's powerful. So don't just tell your kids to go play outside. Take a moment off your computer, put on your tennis shoes, hop outside and help them start their game and run off some energy. — Summer Sanders

Before, I would play a little hoops, a little tennis. Now it's more yoga, Pilates, stretching, some light weight work, push-ups, sit-ups, resistance things. When I used to live on the eleventh floor, I would take the steps. I don't do that so much now. I'm taking the elevator a bit more these days. — Robin Roberts

We [Americans] are a football-baseball-basketball-golf culture with some ocassional forays into tennis and less often the winter sports ... — Michael Wilbon

I know some of my self-worth comes from tennis, and it's hard to think of doing something else where you know you'll never be thebest. Tennis players are rare creatures: where else in the world can you know that you're the best? The definitiveness of it is the beauty of it, but it's not all there is to life and I'm ready to explore the alternatives. — Martina Navratilova

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

It is not just the more talented player who wins. Some players may try a little harder. — Arthur Ashe

If you get operated, something can go wrong and you can just say bye-bye to tennis. That's what happened to a lot of soccer players in Europe. They get operated, some things, it's not the mistake of the doctor. It's just some surgeries, they just don't go the right way ... My injury will never go away. It's already become so chronic there's no chance to fix it so I can play without pain. — Marat Safin

The outfit is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It's kind of about a surprise, because when Alice goes down the rabbit hole, she finds all these things that are so surprising. This outfit is about having a surprise in a tennis dress, and showing some skin and then just having a print. Prints don't happen that often in tennis. So it's called the Wonderland dress. — Venus Williams

Do right-handed people live longer than lefties?

Then again, there are some things about lefties that can't be explained so easily. For whatever reason, whether it's the pressures of living in a world designed for righties, or all the talk of having shorter life spans, lefties have higher rates of depression, drug abuse, allergies, and schizophrenia. But lefties also have an advantage in sports like fencing, tennis and baseball, not to mention greater academic success and higher IQs. Five of America's last eleven presidents were lefties, even though they make up only 10 percent of the American population." (I believe Obama is a leftie as well, making that 6 of the last 12 presidents). — Anahad O'Connor

If I can't serve on grass, I can maybe help cut the grass, paint the lines and serve some strawberries. — Goran Ivanisevic

Speech, tennis, music, skiing, manners, love- you try them waking and perhaps balk at the jump, and then you're over. You've caught the rhythm of them once and for all, in your sleep at night. The city, of course, can wreck it. So much insomnia. So many rhythms collide. The salesgirl, the landlord, the guests, the bystanders, sixteen varieties of social circumstance in a day. Everyone has the power to call your whole life into question here. Too many people have access to your state of mind. Some people are indifferent to dislike, even relish it. Hardly anyone I know. — Renata Adler

It would be a far greater sin for you to drift along in a haze of moderation than to start a fire or two. Go fuck some things up. — Cary Tennis

I definitely think the way the game is transforming, becoming more and more athletic, guys are great athletes out here and relying on the physical skills more than their tennis skills, almost, sometimes. So for that reason, matching up with some of these guys, I can't keep up. — Daniel Nestor

I lost to a better player who played some courageous tennis and deserved to win. — Novak Djokovic

Once in a while I'll get moved to do some exercise. It's something I long for but the biggest problem is bending down and putting my tennis shoes on. Once I go out I'm OK. — David Soul

Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his comrades to arms he would turn aside for the drum of a troop of jugglers; that he would actually find it no more delightful and pleasant to return victorious covered in the dust of battle than after winning a prize for tennis or dancing; then I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking or apprentice him to make fairy-cakes in some goodly town - even if he were the heir of a Duke - following Plato's precept that functions should be allocated not according to the endowments of men's fathers but the endowments of their souls. — Michel De Montaigne

She [Serena Williams] played some great shots, but so did I, and that was the only difference. — Jennifer Capriati

A Mexican newspaper recently ran a story about how the Converse shoe company was making tennis shoes in China using Mexican glue. "The whole article was about why are we giving them our glue," said Zedillo, "when the right attitude would be, How much more glue can we sell them? We still need to break some mental barriers. — Thomas L. Friedman

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

My parents wanted me and my siblings to practice some sports outside school. And since we lived next to a tennis club, we decided to play tennis. I didn't have an idol, so to speak, but I always enjoyed watching Pete Sampras and Alex Corretja. — Stanislas Wawrinka

Hannah asked. "Six cans or three quarts of canned tomatoes, two onions the size of a tennis ball, sixteen ounces of jalapeno peppers or one pint if you've canned them yourself, a tablespoon and a half of garlic powder, a teaspoon and a half of both black pepper and salt, and some cilantro chopped fine if you want. Makes a gallon," Sue said. "I found — Carolyn Brown

I feel like I'm more a fan of tennis rather than it being men's or women's. I enjoy watching doubles as well when it's on. I think that there are certain players that I enjoy watching on the men's and women's side. There's some players that I don't enjoy watching on both sides. — Andy Murray

Just the other day someone threw a bra duct-taped to a tennis ball. I just stood there, playing guitar, thinking how this was totally premeditated. Some girl sat around inventing a way to get her bra onstage from 40 rows back. — Dave Grohl

What I Found in My Desk
A ripe peach with an ugly bruise,
a pair of stinky tennis shoes,
a day-old ham-and-cheese on rye,
a swimsuit that I left to dry,
a pencil that glows in the dark,
some bubble gum found in the park,
a paper bag with cookie crumbs,
an old kazoo that barely hums,
a spelling test I almost failed,
a letter that I should have mailed,
and one more thing, I must confess,
a note from teacher: Clean This Mess!!!! — Bruce Lansky

This was a special week and a special victory for me. I played some great tennis. — Marin Cilic

Stop trying to treat music like it's a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can't be cheap, either. — Jeff Tweedy

I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball. — Annie Dillard

I have been learning English on the road since I started when I was 15, so it is a slow process but making some progress. Now I think I am much more comfortable with my English. However, it is difficult, still, when I speak about something that is not tennis. — Rafael Nadal

I have finally mastered what to do with the second tennis ball. Having small hands, I was becoming terribly self-conscious about keeping it in a can in the car while I served the first one. I noted some women tucked the second ball just inside the elastic leg of their tennis panties. I tried, but found the space already occupied by a leg. Now, I simply drop the second ball down my cleavage, giving me a chest that often stuns my opponent throughout an entire set. — Erma Bombeck

I feel that tennis is an art form that is capable of moving the players and the audience - at least a knowledgeable audience-in almost sensual ways. When I'm performing at my absolute best, I think that some of the euphoria I feel must be transmitted to the audience. — Billie Jean King

Bruno opened his eyes in wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had tough that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived there would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground.
As it turned out, all the things he thought might be there-wern't.' -The boy in the striped Pajamas — John Boyne

Since a month, two months ago, you know, I've started hitting the ball well. I'm playing some really good tennis. That really helps. I sort of have to motivate myself to get pumped up. It really helps my game a lot. — Stefan Edberg

In a perfect world, my tennis game gets better. I have kids and a beautiful wife and live on some hill somewhere that's not in Los Angeles. And the script that Tom Hanks just barely turned down gets in my hands. — Matthew Perry

People really don't care, in some ways, that you have a family. With a high profile job like I have, they just want you to win basketball games. You can do that and still keep your family together. I try the best I can to be at the basketball practices or tennis practices or recitals. In my first year at Dallas my (then 11-year old) son Avery Jr., said, "You know daddy, you're still the best coach in the NBA." I was like, "But I haven't won a playoff game yet." And he said, "That's okay. You're still my daddy." That makes you feel good. — Avery Johnson

There is no substitute to taking a lot of a catches as a youngster if you want to do slip catching - you've got to catch, catch, catch. And more than doing the normal stuff, you have to vary your catching - you've got to take some catches with the tennis ball, you got to take some closer, some further away. — Rahul Dravid

Choking is being in a position to win, and then experiencing some critical failure of nerve or spirit. That never happened to me. And I can't help but think it was because I was never afraid to lose. — Pete Sampras

As far as I knew, Nadia was still with her new guy, some fancy tennis player from Brazil. Donatello or Michelangelo or something. Ninja Turtle? Yeah. — Ilsa Madden-Mills

Tennis players are very fortunate that unlike some disciplines of sport, in mega-sporting events like the Grand Slams, they have a huge platform to showcase their talents on the world stage once every few months. — Sania Mirza

Serena and I have done some great career planning, and we're playing really at the peak of our tennis right now. I think tennis has been a sport where people play this insane schedule from 14 years old, so of course at 26, it's over. We've really paced ourselves. — Venus Williams

I don't go out of my way to get noticed. When I'm in Scotland it's tough, because loads of people come up to me. They're always really polite. It's nice, it's fun and good to speak to people who aren't involved in tennis, but some have this habit of just staring at me and that makes me really self-conscious. I'd rather they came up and said hello. — Andy Murray

To act with a tennis ball and imagine it's a tentacle, or if you're in some kind of wilderness film and you go, 'Okay, we can't have a grizzly bear here, but imagine when you step over the rock there there's a grizzly bear.' I don't know. They're tough moments. — Joel Edgerton

When I committed to playing a little tennis in some exhibitions, it was the best thing for me. It got me in shape. It got me out of the house. It got me doing something I love to do. — Pete Sampras

Team sports, there's always some kind of sacrifice happening ... A team, if we lose, if Michael Jordan has a bad night, you hang it on him a little bit ... but if you lose as a tennis player, you have no one to blame but yourself, and that's a different beast. — Marc Blucas

I played all kinds of sports when I was young: tennis, handball, basketball, some soccer. I focused on basketball when I was 16 or 17 and then came to the U.S. when I was 20. — Dirk Nowitzki

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

Attractive women in the early stages of disrepair, fighting to keep age at bay with facials, compression undergarments, and aggressively fashionable skirts bought off the rack at Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. They run on treadmills, these women, work out with personal trainers and play tennis at the club, but still their hips widen, their legs thicken, their breasts sag. Genetics help some more than others, but they are all like melting ice cream bars, slowly sliding down the stick as they come apart. — Jonathan Tropper

Instant replay is going to be awesome. For too long, tennis has been stuck in its traditions, which is part of its strength as a game. But you have to be able to change some things and get fans interested. — Patrick McEnroe

Another factor is the education and culture in which you grow up. I didn't grow up in the culture of victory, where you are expected to be or have to be, the best. It was not at all like that in my family. Tennis was really a hobby. If it led to something, great. If not, there were other things in life. I think that was something I was missing at some points in my career, because when I see Hingis or the Williamses, you see how they were educated for this: to win, to be the best, a bit the American mentality. Number one. Number one. Number one. I didn't have this. — Amelie Mauresmo

I love being outside and feeling free, so I jog or ride my bike. Some days I play basketball or tennis. — Jennifer Hudson

You don't think about anything because you just try to playevery game, every point. If you get some chance, you try to take this chance. — Nikolay Davydenko

Tennis Canada nominated me a few years ago, and I did some research into it and realized it's one of the biggest honours you can have as a Canadian. I've seen the list of the people, and it's pretty special. — Daniel Nestor