Tennis Game Quotes & Sayings

Part of the experience of enjoying a tennis match on TV is listening to the observations of an expert commentator
one who knows the sport, has a genuine passion for the game, respects the viewers' intelligence, knows when to talk and when to keep quiet, can make you laugh and is not afraid to call a spade a spade. — Dave McPherson

Co-dependent tennis is not a good game. When you serve the ball, someone should hit it back to you. If no one tries, the match should be over as far as you're concerned. Put your racket away, go home, find another game tomorrow. Stop returning your own serves, lobs, and volleys. Stop playing off your own energy, needs, and desires. Quit kidding yourself. — Lionel Fisher

On winter Sundays when I was a child, we waited for my father to return from his tennis game with bagels and sturgeon and for my mother to object when the 1 P.M. Giants game began. — Jane Leavy

'Minute to Win It' is a variation on a game show from the 1950s called 'Beat the Clock,' in which contestants won washing machines and fox stoles by doing such pointless stunts as catching a tennis ball in a paper cup or knocking a hat off one's wife's head with a whipped-cream spritzer. — Tom Shales

Do you play tennis, Senator?"
"Now and then," he said with a ghost of a smile. He didn't add he'd lettered i the sport at Harvard.
"I'd imagine chess would be your game-plotting,long-term strategy."
His smile remained enigmatic as he reached for his wine. "We'll have to have a game."
Shelby's low laugh drifted over him. "I believe we already have."
His hand brushed lightly over hers. "Want a rematch?"
Shelby gave him a look that made his blood spring hotly. "No.You might not outmaneuver me a second time. — Nora Roberts

The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things
praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts
not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. — C.S. Lewis

Tennis is a young man's game. Until you're 25, you can play singles. From 25 to 35, you should play doubles. I won't tell you exactly how old I am, but when I played, there were 28 men on the court - just on my side of the net. — George Burns

If you go out eight times and play tennis eight times this week, yeah, it's the same rules, but it's a different game every time you're out on that court. You're working on a different part of your game every time you're out on that court; your partner's working on a different part of their game, and the act of being watched changes it. — Kevin Spacey

Even Roosevelt, with his singular disciplined drive, managed to quit work early four or five afternoons each week for a game of tennis or jog through Rock Creek Park before heading — Doris Kearns Goodwin

When you're with another actor and doing something very intense, often you pull them over to your side, or they pull you over to theirs. But if you stay in your own truth, you can play that perfect tennis match. I always want to bring my power, but not in a way that eliminates the whole game! — Giancarlo Esposito

I don't like anything that's "just an escape." To me the best part of golf is that, unlike my tennis game, I can actually get better. I've probably reached my plateau in tennis, but in golf I have a lot of room for improvement. I really enjoy working on my game. I like practicing. I chart my rounds. — Condoleezza Rice

Acting is like a game of tennis. The better your opponent, the better you're going to play. — Shawnee Smith

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

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

In the '70s, Florida-style golf communities started to be built for America's baby-boomers who were doing well and taking up the game but couldn't get into exclusive golf and tennis clubs and were looking for a nice place to live and raise their families. — Alex Shoumatoff

The ball is round, the game is long. — Bjorn Borg

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

I just enjoy watching tennis. And there's things that you can learn from the men's and the women's game. — Andy Murray

To see Good Tennis! What divine joy Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ? Let other people play at other things; The King of Games is still the Game of Kings. — James Kenneth Stephen

Tennis: the most perfect combination of athleticism, artistry, power, style, and wit. A beautiful game, but one so remorselessly travestied by the passage of time. — Martin Amis

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

The minute you think you know everything about tennis is the minute your game starts going down the tubes. — Jimmy Connors

I grew up on games like Madden and NBA Jam, then moved on to NFL 2K on Dreamcast. The game I really loved was Virtua Tennis. — Chris Paul

Contractions, 'U' for 'you' and the like are wonderful to make communication brief and efficient - but we wouldn't want all our talk to be only brief and efficient. Taking pauses out of language would be like taking the net away from a tennis game. Where would all the fun go? — Pico Iyer

I don't know if tennis players feel like that but when you have a great opponent - although I didn't feel like he [ Ben Mendelsohn ] was an opponent - you just know your game is going to jack up and it's just going to raise the bar. I couldn't wait for that elevation. — John Leguizamo

Seeing the intensity and power she brings to the game, it's hard to imagine her being anything but single-minded in pursuing tennis. But Serena Williams has other passions, too. In fact, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day, week or month for one of the world's most gifted athletes to chase her many interests. — Don Yaeger

I grew up in an age where women's tennis did not have similar prizes to men, and they played in complete obscurity, really, compared to the men's game. — David Stern

Tennis is all about mental toughness, and you have to keep your head in the game. I make time to relax away from competition pressures, travel and intense training schedules to make sure I'm looking after myself. Taking time out with family and friends helps to maintain the work-life balance everyone needs. — Samantha Stosur

When love is part of a game, it means nothing. When love is love, it means everything. — Kate McGahan

Tennis is a traditional game. A big sport like tennis does not need too many changes. The game has become too fast, there are hardly any long, interesting rallies these days. So maybe slowing down the courts could help. But you can't really stop a sport from evolving. — Bjorn Borg

Well, with that filly in my line of vision blushing like a virgin, something in me was bound to stand at attention. And my walking legs were occupied. — A.G. Starling

Maybe, one other match better; but if you look at the tournament as a whole, I played very high quality tennis for seven matches and raised my game when I needed to. — Richard Krajicek

Cricket was a manly game. Manly masters spoke of the 'discipline of the hard ball'. Schools preferred manly games. Games were only manly if it was possible while playing them to be killed or drowned or at the very least badly maimed. Cricket could be splendidly dangerous. Tennis was not manly, and if a boy had asked permission to spend the afternoon playing croquet he would have been instantly punished for his 'general attitude'. Athletics were admitted into the charmed lethal circle as a boy could, with a little ingenuity, get impaled during the pole-vault or be decapitated by a discus and did a manly death. Fives were thought to be rather tame until one boy ran his head into a stone buttress and got concussion and another fainted dead away from heat and fatigue. Then everybody cheered up about fives. — Arthur Marshall

I was glad to watch the soccer because it helps my tennis game, realize maybe they're just rooting for the underdog. — Serena Williams

To hear that you're doing something that other people are enjoying, it's a fun game. It's like hitting a tennis ball over the net, and somebody hits it back. That's what it feels like with the fans. It feels like someone else is participating in my creation, and it's quite incredible. — Kristin Bauer Van Straten

During a match, you are in a permanent battle to fight back your everyday vulnerabilities, bottle up your human feelings. It's a kind of self-hypnosis, a game you play, with deadly seriousness, to disguise your own weaknesses from yourself, as well as from your rival. — Rafael Nadal I Farreras

You know, I still love the innocent parts of the game. I love hitting tennis balls. I love seeing the young guys do well. I'll still have a lot of friends to watch. I'll miss the relationships probably the most. As time passes, I'll probably miss the tennis more. — Andy Roddick

Conversation is much like a tennis game except that in tennis you try to put the ball in the most difficult position for the one who must hit it - while in conversation you must try to put it where it will be easy to hit. — Margery Wilson

It was trying to make my tennis game look mildly respectable, which I found you don't even really need to practice if you have a really good editor. They can edit it and you're like, "Hey, it looks like I'm playing really well." That was the fun part, but it was like going to summer camp. — Paul Reiser

I always give Lindsay so much credit for her tennis game, for her attitude, for her person, and because of how she deals with all the things. I don't think people give her enough credit for how well she's doing. — Martina Hingis

Acting is like a sporting match; a tennis game, but no one should win or lose. The game's the thing! — Jon Polito

In tennis, losing your service game was called being broken.
If you lost your service without scoring a single point, you were broken at love. — Lyla Payne

Summer I was 13, my grandfather and my father taught me how to play golf. I took lessons that summer, and I played every day that summer. I probably would've kept playing, except I realized that girls don't watch golf; they watch tennis. So I let my golf game go dormant and started playing tennis. — Thomas Gibson

If you watch Rafael Nadal play tennis, you can only respond with amazement and great admiration. He is an incredible athlete with so much discipline, so much concentration and someone who likes to put a lot of passion into every point. Words fail to come out of me to describe his game appropriately. I've rarely seen anyone who approaches a ball with so much attention. With such passion and joy that it makes great fun to watch him. With him, you can associate everything that makes tennis so beautiful. — Steffi Graf

Roger [Federer], he brought tennis ... one level higher. Normally he toys with everybody. With all respect to other players, he does whatever he wants on the court against them. It's incredible what kind of game he can play. — Marat Safin

We played for about half an hour before I realized we were actually playing two different games. What I'd thought of as ludo was actually a game called gin rummy, and what Warren was playing seemed to be a mixture of craps and table tennis. Once we started playing by one consistent set of rules, though, the fun was really over. — Graham Parke

What a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be "sorry" and admiration of each other's play crosses the net as frequently as the ball. — James M. Barrie

Good tennis players are those who beat other tennis players, and a good shot during play is one the opponent can't return. But that's not a truth about life or excellence -- it's a truth about tennis. We've created an artificial structure in which one person can't succeed without doing so at someone else's expense, and then we accuse anyone who prefers other kinds of activities of being naive because "there can be only one best -- you're it or you're not," as the teacher who delivered that much-admired you're-not-special commencement speech declared. You see the sleight of hand here? The question isn't whether everyone playing a competitive game can win or whether every student can be above average. Of course they can't. The question that we're discouraged from asking is why our games are competitive -- or our students are compulsively ranked against one another -- in the first place. — Alfie Kohn

Tennis is a funny game; unbelievable highs and the lows are just as low. — John McEnroe

When you are very little tennis should be fun, it should be a game. — Guy Forget

And during the day, to prevent stress from building up - which makes it harder to fall asleep at night - every few hours take sixty seconds of recovery time the way top tennis players introduce tiny slots of recovery rituals into their game. All you have to do is stop what you are doing, and simply bring your awareness to the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet, or both. Let it stay there for a minute, and feel all tension leaving your body, drifting away from you through your hands and feet. — Arianna Huffington

No tennis player is perfect. Even if you're world #1, I don't think, you still have things to improve on, and I'm not even close to that. So I am going to have weaknesses in my game; I am going to have strengths in my game, but I still have time to develop a lot of things, hopefully, and we'll see how it goes. — Sania Mirza

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

But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Sport, on the other hand, is straightforward. In badminton, if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball, if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis, if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first or second rallies you've won in that game, or 10 for the third, with an indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two 10-point (or 15-point) segments clear of his opponent. It's clear and simple. — Alan Partridge

Jeff's attention is swiveling between the two of them like he's watching a game of tennis being played with a kitten's head instead of a ball. — Kate Sherwood

Cycling isn't a game, it's a sport. Tough, hard and unpitying, and it requires great sacrifices. One plays football, or tennis, or hockey. One doesn't play at cycling. — Jean De Gribaldy

Tennis just a game, family is forever. — Serena Williams

He was working that charm right now on the trainer who kneeled before him and touched his thigh as though it were the thigh of David, Michelangelo's glorious statue come to life right here on court. — A.G. Starling

I'm sure many people who discover they are destined to be athletes before they know what kind, go through a period of revelation ... when they realise instinctively that this is their game ... I think I realised that those first couple of summers in Barellan when the War Memorial Tennis Club became my playground. — Evonne Goolagong Cawley

I'm just glad Open tennis is here. It's great for the game. That's more important. — Pancho Gonzales

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

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

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

I'm searching for the perfect swing. I'm searching for something that's not there. I tried twetny different things today and nobody else out there would have done that. This game is too tough. If I'd have known, I'd have taken up tennis or something. I have a chance. But if you're a betting guy don't bet on me. — Johnny Miller

I think the tennis is only a game. You can lose. You can win. After that? In life, there are much more important things than tennis. — Rafael Nadal

[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

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

I wouldn't say I'm a spender in the sense that I'm going out on huge spending sprees. However, to be able to function at the top of your game on the professional tennis circuit often requires an element of frequent spending. — Andy Murray

He's now letting Chang play his own game - and he does that better than anyone. — Christine Truman

Right now, I'm at the top of the world in my game so my focus isn't on when I'm going to end. My focus is on playing the best tennis that I can, and there is no end to that. — Venus Williams

I loved to play, I was competitive, I wanted to win, that was all I knew. In the first few years tennis is a game. Later, it becomes a job, — Gabriela Sabatini

I was never happy that my injuries cut my career short and ultimately forced my decision to step away from tennis. I have enjoyed my time away from the court, a period that has allowed me to experience a different side of life. However, I miss the game and the challenge of competing at the highest level of tennis, and I want to gauge whether I can stay healthy and compete against today's top players. — Martina Hingis

Playing (Serena) it always felt like playing a steamroller. No subtlety, no finesse, just raw, loud power. To respect this style of play was always a bit tough for me, but of course I had to, because the rules of tennis dont state that having a beautiful game is required to become No. 1. — Martina Hingis

Tennis's beauty's infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. — David Foster

Besides my strokes improving, I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the game. The travel's not so tough any more, I'm learning my way around the circuit. I'm learning to cope and I'm having fun. That's the key
the tennis is fun and I'm really enjoying it. — Mardy Fish

You can equate acting to a tennis game: When you're playing one of the best, you get better. — Albert Brooks

I love the feel of hitting the ball hard, the pleasure of a rally. It is these things that make tennis the delightful game that it is. — Helen Wills Moody

Good shot, bad luck and hell are the five basic words to be used in a game of tennis, though these, of course, can be slightly amplified. — Virginia Graham

I really just try to enjoy the game and hope that I can inspire young kids. I started playing tennis because of Monica Seles, and I try to promote the sport in the best possible way. Sometimes it's hard because you get upset on court, but I think in life one learns through experiences in order to evolve as a person. — Ana Ivanovic

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

I often make the analogy with tennis. Every match the rules are the same, but no game is ever the same. Theatre is like that. Every time is different. — Kevin Spacey

Equipment's the biggest change. And the guys have been getting bigger, stronger, more athletic - so the game has become more of a track meet instead of a tennis match, in a sense. — John McEnroe

Life is like a tennis game. You can't win without serving. — Arthur Ashe

Somebody once said that good conversation should be like a tennis match, with each player gracefully sending the ball back across the net; instead, most conversation is like a golf game, with each player stroking only his own ball, and waiting impatiently for the other to finish. — Sydney J. Harris

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

Tennis lessons westlake village provide a good coaching for youngest.Because that are very experiance men in tennis.His students on the importance of strength and agility training as well as mental and psychological strength and the roles they play within the game of tennis. — Various

When Arthur Ashe plays tennis, his purpose each day is to play the game in a way he has never played it before. It may be a backhand he uses, one that he may never have used before in that circumstance. His play is a fresh integration of his world at the instant of action. A really great scientist has the whole past at his disposal. At any instant he is rebuilding the world, molecule by molecule, in his subconscious. That is what you want in an athlete or a scientist. — Edwin Land

I used to be a columnist for 'Golf Monthly' and have contributed articles for national newspapers based on the humour that is in abundance in the game, which is more than can be said of tennis. — Jasper Carrott

People sometimes say, "Isn't it boring, isn't it always the same? It's the same lines." I go, "Well, do you play tennis? Because that's the best analogy I can give." If you go out eight times and play tennis eight times this week, yeah it's the same rules but it's a different game every time you're out on that court.And that's the best analogy I can come up with the theater. — Kevin Spacey

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

It has changed, quite a lot. It is very different now, there are quicker men, they are taller, stronger, have great stamina. The balls have also become faster. Tennis has now become a power sport. There is more depth in the game, as well, there are many more players than there used to be. The entire character of the game has changed. — Bjorn Borg

I decided that I want to live the rest of my life happy with what I'm doing. So when I play tennis again, I have to play it for the right reason. I don't want to play to get my No. 1 ranking back. I don't want to play for the attention, or to earn more. I don't even want to play because the world wants to see me do it, even though it's nice to know that the world is interested. I only want to play because I love the game, which is the reason I began to play at age seven in the first place. — Monica Seles

What sort of perverse beast uses sex to lure a woman into a game of table tennis? — R.R. Hood

On the page, 'Gone Girl' was a literary game: a tennis match of alternating chapters from Nick and Amy, with the reader offering to take each character's side every few pages. — Richard Corliss

Tennis is a funny game, and it takes a life-time of keeping one's eyes open on the circuit to have any chance of understanding the strange phenomena that exist in our exciting sport! — Sania Mirza

If someone where playing tennis you wouldn't walk onto the court and begin to have a conversion with them, likewise I think reading is at least as important as a game of tennis. — Ian McEwan

Bernard Shaw phrased the experience very admirably: "When we learn something, it feels at first as if we have lost something." It is so, for instance, with a new stroke at tennis. Our old stroke had been a pretty incompetent affair, of the sort to make a professional laugh. But it had been ours, we were used to it, all our muscles were in the habit of it. The new stroke is doubtless better, but we are not in the way of it, we cannot do anything with it, and all the joy goes out of tennis - but only until we have mastered the new way. Then, quite suddenly, we find that the whole game is a new experience. — Frank Sheed

Tennis was a game invented by a woman named Samantha Tennis in 1839, in the village of Lobsworth, County of Kent, as a diversion for the wealthy and titled Englishmen of the region, who had nothing better to do at the time but drink, belch and wear funny clothes. — Dan Jenkins