Quotes & Sayings About Tennis Players

Tennis players need to be very focused and very intense, and I can show tennis players are not just hitting the little yellow ball and moving in between the white lines. I'm always trying to show my personality outside of the court. — Tomas Berdych

A lot of the players are very complimentary about each other; they embrace at the end of matches because the level of the tennis has been so good. I think that's something that tennis has got to be proud of. — Andy Murray

As tennis players, we work and we sacrifice many things. To lose, that's not a happy thing - I mean sure, I was disappointed. You have to come back strong. But to win the last point in a grand slam tournament, that's the most beautiful and most satisfying feeling you can get as a tennis player. It's worth it. — Bjorn Borg

I sometimes rented a car and drove from event to event in Europe; a road trip was a great escape from the day-to-day anxieties of playing, and it kept me from getting too lost in the tournament fun house with its courtesy cars, caterers, locker room attendants, and such - all amenities that create a firewall between players and what you might call the 'real' world - you know, where you may have to read a map, ask a question in a foreign tongue, find a restaurant and read the menu posted in the window to make sure you're not about to walk into a joint that serves only exotic reptile meat. — Patrick McEnroe

What drove me to become the world's greatest bodybuilder is no different from what drives other athletes to become great tennis players or boxers or jockeys. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

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

As tennis players, you are never satisfied. We are greedy as players, always want better results. — Sania Mirza

It was simple reality - most competitive tennis players in my day were privileged, spoiled, entitled and white. Also, many of them were beautiful, fit, tan and of good stock - great big hair and white teeth and long legs. Then there were the rest of us. — Anne Lamott

Professional tennis has become an extremely physical and unbelievably competitive sport. Injuries are the bane of tennis players, and it goes with the territory. — Sania Mirza

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

The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What's the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good? — Martina Navratilova

There are lots of women tennis players, for instance, but because not many of them seem to have much personality, they're interchangeable. You don't have a feeling about them. — Daley Thompson

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

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

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

In the history of women's tennis the great players have come back from long absences with no problems. — Lindsay Davenport

Almost everybody's here doing the same thing. Who am I to come up with an excuse when there's 64 other players here doing the same thing? 63 others, sorry. — Andy Roddick

Well, I do feel that I carry the responsibility of representing my country wherever I am, and this responsibility came with the success that I had in last couple of years, not just myself but the whole group of tennis players that comes from Serbia. And athletes in general are, in this moment, the biggest ambassadors that our country has. — Novak Djokovic

You are better than you think you are; you can play at a higher level than you think you can; and you have the potential to beat so-called better players. If you're a competitor and not just playing for exercise (and "cardio" tennis is great), don't accept where you are; don't settle for less. Shake yourself up in whatever manner it takes and you'll get results. Like Murray and the Djoker you can turn things around and beat players who are beating you. — Anonymous

Possessing an array of athletic gifts is something most tennis players can only dream about. Most players, if they're lucky, have one attribute that stands out
either a monster serve, great footspeed, superb touch, superior timing or innate feel for the ball. — Dave McPherson

The poet Melvin B. Tolson once said, 'A civilization is judged only in its decline.' That made sense to me. I would imagine the same is true for poets and tennis players. — Nikki Giovanni

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

There's no home team in tennis, no built-in fan base, so the players have to step up and do their fair share. — Andy Roddick

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

I am the greatest tennis player. The other players are like coins in my pocket that I give to a homeless man. — Novak Djokovic

We often suffer from akrasia, weakness of will. So we become good people the way we become good tennis players or violinists, through practice until the behaviour we aspire to becomes natural and instinctive. Being moral means acquiring the habits of the heart we call virtue. — Jonathan Sacks

I think I will always stay involved in tennis and would like to give back by helping out young players. I have done a little commentary and may one day enjoy doing that again. — Samantha Stosur

No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, but tennis players talk to themselves-and answer. Tennis players look like lunatics in a public square. — Andre Agassi

The proper method of playing mixed doubles is to swipe the ball accidentally and straight at the woman opponent as hard and as accurately as possible. Male players must not only retain equanimity on their side of the net, but create dissension on the other. — Art Hoppe

I admire the way golfers handle themselves. But tennis players are a lot younger, as a rule. There aren't many teenagers on the golf tour. — Pete Sampras

I think that tennis has been in a place for many years without any change. Davis Cup and Fed Cup has always been a very exciting platform for players because it is such an individual sport, and we get to play a team competition. We love being part of a team. — Mahesh Bhupathi

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

I've been asked a lot lately if tennis is clean or not. I don't know any more how you judge whether a sport is clean. If one in 100 players is doping, in my eyes that isn't a clean sport. — Andy Murray

Most players who play tennis love the game. But I think you also have to respect it. You want to do everything you can in your power to do your best. And for me, I know I get insane guilt if I go home at the end of the day and don't feel I've done everything I can. If I know I could have done something better, I have this uneasy feeling. — Andy Roddick

I think all tennis players have to struggle through the early stages of their career. We start off playing tournaments and really just get by. I always had a dream to play in the big tournaments and never have doubted if it was worth it. Having to battle a little early on in my career makes it all the more worthwhile now. — Samantha Stosur

Probably around 14, when I was finishing primary school. I'm coming from a pretty small city in Croatia, not too many options to train, not too many players. So I had to either choose to stay at home to do more school or move to Zagreb to the national training center. That was when I made decisions to do something better in tennis. — Marin Cilic

All teenage girls like to look good and tennis players are no different. — Maria Kirilenko

Tennis players we're always playing in center courts that feel like arenas. And when we get on the court and the crowd cheers your name or salutes you - it's like you're a gladiator in the arena. And everyone is cheering - and you're fighting, you're screaming, during your strokes - it feels like you're an animal, fighting for your life. — Novak Djokovic

Right now I like baseball, hockey and tennis players. And horseback riders. — Martina Hingis

Even though there are a lot of bright tennis players out there, you still have to protect yourself and save all your mental and emotional energies for tennis. — Chris Evert

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

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

Since I retired, I very much enjoy watching Serena Williams play. While I was playing, she was one of the toughest players I ever faced. Her ground strokes are so solid, her serve is one of the most powerful in women's tennis, and mentally she is just so strong. — Monica Seles

An idea has no worth at all without believable characters to implement it; a plot without characters is like a tennis court without players. Daffy Duck is to a Buck Rogers story what John McEnroe was to tennis. Personality. That is the key, the drum, the fife. Forget the plot. — Chuck Jones

Like all sports fans, tennis junkies are not satisfied with simply following the current crop of players and admiring their accomplishments. They seemingly always need to compare players of different eras and designate one of them as the greatest player of all time. — Dave McPherson

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

Tennis Australia really led the charge as far as upping the prize money and trying to do the right thing by the players. They also led the way so women have equal prize money in all the grand slams too. — Samantha Stosur

Knowing is a vital part of learning and sharing a vision of what we want to create together. But "how" questions are on the doing side of the model. As in playing tennis, we learn how by doing. There is no other way. We can read books on tennis techniques and strategies. We can get a good tennis player to show us how he or she does it. We can watch players on TV for hours and analyze every stroke. But only by doing will we ever be able to learn how to do it. We may make mistakes but mistakes actually teach us more than our successes. — Fred Lee

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

Healthy parakeets have the nervous energy of tennis players. — Mignon McLaughlin

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

If I were asked to name one aspect of tennis that is the biggest weakness of players of all levels, I would probably say concentration. However good your shots, however fast your movement and reflexes, all is lost if the mind is not controlling every move. — Ken Rosewall

Fitness is defined differently by everyone, but for me, the most important thing is being healthy. As tennis players, what we do is not the healthiest thing. We almost abuse our bodies. — Sania Mirza

I go to New York City, the Tournament of Champions, a significant milestone because it's a clash of the top players in the world. Once more I square off against Chang, who's developed a bad habit since we last met. Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God - credits God - for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang's box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke. — Andre Agassi

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement ... — Andre Agassi

Introvert conversations are like jazz, where each player gets to solo for a nice stretch before the other player comes in and does his solo. And like jazz, once we get going, we can play all night. Extrovert conversations are more like tennis matches, where thoughts are batted back and forth, and players need to be ready to respond. Introverts get winded pretty quickly. — Laurie A. Helgoe

I tell the players: You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause-from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end. — Andre Agassi

Tennis players go into a press conference, and almost every one of them is the same. We do very little differently on a day-to-day basis. — Lleyton Hewitt

When I started out jumping around with a tennis racket, I never thought I would end up on a list of the best guitar players in the world. It makes me feel proud of the hard work I've put in. — Gary Hoey

Our view is that the very best data miners or statisticians can earn as much as the very best golfers or tennis players. — Anthony Goldbloom

Walking to the net, I'm certain that I've lost to the better man, the Everest of the next generation. I pity the young players who will have to contend with him. I feel for the man who is fated to play Agassi to his Sampras. Though I don't mention Pete by name, I have him uppermost in my mind when I tell reporters: It's real simple. Most people have weaknesses. Federer has none. — Andre Agassi