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The Quest for Quotes Page 2 |
"I realise he big star now, but sometimes I feel like dog trainer who teach dog manners and graces and just when you think dog knows how he should act with nice qualities, dog make big puddle and all is wasted." (Ion Tiriac about Ilie Nastase) "I'll chase that son of a bitch Borg to the ends of the earth. I'll be waiting for him. I'll dog him everywhere. Every time he looks round he'll see my shadow." (Jimmy Connors) "A traditional fixture at Wimbledon is the way the BBC TV commentary box fills up with British players eliminated in the early rounds." (Clive James) "It's all your fault - but nothing personal!" (Andy Roddick, to an umpire) "Sure I know where the press room is - I just look for where they throw the dog meat." (Martina Navratilova) "Pete is a step and a half slower." (Greg Rusedski after losing to Pete Sampras in the US Open) "Against him I don't need to be a step and a half quicker." ( Pete Sampras responding to Greg Rusedski's criticism - he went on to win the title! ) "She's not real any more. She doesn't really like tennis. You can tell. She's not playing from the heart. It's all contrived. She just wants to look good." (Mats Wilander talking about Serena Williams) "Umpiring, the only job in the world where you can screw up on a daily basis and still have one!" (Andy Roddick) "She doesn't sleep. At night she seems to turn into a vampire." (Goran Ivanisevic on the joys of fatherhood) "Look, Nastase, we used to have a famous cricket match in this country called Gentlemen versus Players. The Gentlemen were put down on the scorecard as 'Mister' because they were gentlemen. By no stretch of the imagination can anybody call you a gentleman." (Wimbledon umpire, on being told to address Ilie Nastase as 'Mister') "Compared with British tennis, Mars appears brimming with life." (The Guardian newspaper) "Grow a spine!" (Andy Roddick, yelling at a chair umpire) "I remember when Jimmy and I went into confession and he came out a half-hour later and I said, 'How'd it go?' He said, 'I wasn't finished. The priest said come back next Sunday.'" (Chris Evert, on Jimmy Connors) "Nastase does not have a brain; he has a bird fluttering around in his head." (Ion Tiriac) "My feelings are Yevgeny Kafelnikov should take his prize money when he is done here and go and buy some perspective." (Andre Agassi) "Thanks, but no. I want to be a winner." (Maria Sharapova on being compared to Anna Kournikova) "It would be a nice place if you took all the people out of the city." (John McEnroe, on encountering Paris for the first time)
"When he was young, if I had a shot I could hit down his throat, I did. And I'd say, 'See, Jimmy, even your mother will do that to you.'" (Jimmy Connors' mother) "I really want to win a race this year. If I don't, then all the guys will start calling me Tim Henman." (Mark Webber, Australian Formula One driver) "A great coach can lead you to a place where you don't need him any more." (Andre Agassi on Brad Gilbert) "The Argentineans practise on the court for two hours a day, then they must practise in front of a mirror for two more hours saying 'I'm not guilty.'" (Vince Spadea on Argentine players and drug testing) "Plus wasn't she the first player to lose 0-and-0 in the final of a Grand Slam? That has to count for something." (Mike Bryan on Natasha Zvereva's nomination for the Tennis Hall of Fame in recognition of her achievements in doubles) "Fifteen times I played him, fifteen times he beat me. The sixteenth time I was a set and two breaks up and he still beat me. Afterwards he came to see me in the locker-room and said, 'If I had a temperature of 110, if I was on my deathbed, I wouldn't lose to you.' Real nice guy." (Brad Gilbert on his one-sided rivalry with Ivan Lendl) "I have thought about dropping an atomic bomb on Sydney but I wouldn't gain anything from it." (Damir Dokic on daughter Jelena's decision to leave Serbia and return to live in Australia) "Tim Henman . . . is the human form of beige." (Comedienne Linda Smith) "I wore that to a sixth-grade dance." (Robby Ginepri on Vince Spadea's outfit in Miami 2007) "If you read it, yours must have been one of the 10 books he sold." (James Blake on Vince Spadea's autobiographical book) "Serve like me. If you serve like me, you put it in the box. That's it." (Umpire Cedric Mourier's advice to Nikolay Davydenko at the 2007 Paris Masters, implying that the Russian wasn't trying against Marcos Baghdatis) "Stay in school, kids, or you might end up being an umpire." (Andy Roddick) "Going to the dentist. On second thought, I would rather have a root canal than play Santoro." (Marat Safin, on being asked his biggest fear) "Back and a hip? And a cramp? Bird flu? Anthrax? SARS? Common cough and cold? He's either quick to call a trainer or he's the most courageous guy of all time." (Andy Roddick on Novak Djokovic's list of injury concerns during the 2008 US Open) "There's a peculiar mix of stodgy self-satisfaction and relentless self-promotion and branding. It's a bit like the sort of authority figure whose office wall has every last plaque, diploma, and award he's ever gotten, and every time you come into the office you're forced to look at the wall and say something to indicate that you're impressed." (observations about Wimbledon by writer David Foster Wallace, R.I.P) "He has a mushroomed-shaped head, inky black hair, and an expression of deep and intractable unhappiness, as unhappy a face as I have seen outside a graduate creative writing program." (David Foster Wallace again, describing Michael Chang) "When I was asked to play here I started practising. When I heard it was Tim I was playing I stopped practising." (Andre Agassi, before playing Tim Henman in an exhibition match to launch Wimbledon's new Center Court roof, 2009) "I don't think you need to worry about that, Vera." (Jelena Dokic responding to Vera Zvonareva fretting over the thought that she might be overwhelmed by reporters clamouring to speak to her) "I played like Kournikova: 20 double faults per match." (Goran Ivanisevic, German Open 1999) 
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"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." (Arthur Ashe) "You can have a certain arrogance, and I think that's fine, but what you should never lose is the respect for the others." (Steffi Graf) "Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity." (Billie Jean King) "I just try to concentrate on concentrating." (Martina Navratilova) "It's one-on-one out there, man. There ain't no hiding. I can't pass the ball." (Pete Sampras) "Triumph and disaster are not the impostors - there have to be winners and losers in sport - it's cheers and jeers that should be treated just the same." (D.W., tennisontheline) "Jim Courier did a great job of showing the rest what is possible. He could only hit forehands, but almost every one could have been a winner. But Jim struggled when others learned to hit the ball just as hard. Many look at Andy (Roddick) as being a similar animal, and it could well be in a few years everybody hits the ball as hard as him." (Todd Martin) "Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people." (Martina Navratilova) "It is very dangerous to have your self-worth riding on your results as an athlete." (Jim Courier) "If I don't practise the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can." (Ivan Lendl) "The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else." (Martina Navratilova) "I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play." (Boris Becker) "From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life." (Arthur Ashe) "If I were to say, 'God, why me?' about the bad things, then I should have said, 'God, why me?' about the good things that happened in my life." (Arthur Ashe) "You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing." (Arthur Ashe) "A strong body listens. It obeys. A weak body commands. If your body is weak it tells you what to do. If your body is strong it'll actually listen to you when you tell it to do something. If you build it right you can overcome some of the obstacles of age and recovery." (Andre Agassi) "That is what is most special about achieving equality - the positive signal that it will send the world over to the next generation of girls dreaming of winning Wimbledon or becoming a scientist or going to the moon as an astronaut." (Maria Sharapova on the decision to award women equal prize money at Wimbledon in 2007) "[In the modern game], you're a clay court specialist, a grass court specialist or a hard court specialist ... or you're Roger Federer." (Jimmy Connors)
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"In America you're conditioned to regard everything as a contest. You have to make the Ten Best Dressed List, win this, win that. It drives me nuts sometimes. Who cares, for Christ's sake?" (Arthur Ashe) "When I am playing well I think I play such boring tennis." (Virginia Wade) "Does everyone in this silly game have to be so serious?" (Dominique Nastase, wife of Ilie) "Whoever stole it is spending less money than my wife." (Ilie Nastase explaining why he failed to report the theft of his credit card) "If I don't win tonight I guess the sun will still come up in the morning." (Arthur Ashe) "Losses are always a relief. They take a burden off me, make me feel more normal. If I win several tournaments in a row I get so confident I'm in a cloud. If I lose I go back to the dressing room and I'm no better nor worse than anyone else. A loss gets me eager again." (Chris Evert) "At one point in your life you have the thing you want or the reasons why you don't." (Andy Roddick) "I must have. I remember the bar across the street." (Rod Laver, on being asked if he had ever played in West Orange, New Jersey before) "If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your ass." (Randall "Tex" Cobb) "It's like love. When you look too hard, you don't find it. When you let it happen naturally, it comes." (Marat Safin) "Today I smash rackets for tomorrow we die." (Marat Safin) "I didn't have fun at all today, although I played a very good match and won in straight sets. It's not easy - he's my best friend on the tour." (Carlos Moya, unable to celebrate after beating Fernando Vicente) "With me, anything is possible. When I come on the court, you know, anything happens. So they always expect something. Something is gonna happen. But today, nothing happen. Today was show but no actors in the show, you know." (Goran Ivanisevic) "Tennis is a huge part of my life, but I don't base my self-value or my self-worth or the quality of my life on my results on the court." (Venus Williams) "I made a mistake. But we need to get things into perspective. We didn't invade Iraq. This is a furry ball going over a net." (ATP Tour chief, Etienne de Villiers, encountering problems with the round-robin format he introduced in 2007) "He wants to chest bump, chest bump, chest bump. I'm like, no. Do it with your girlfriend; don't chest bump me." (Liezel Huber, after winning the 2010 US Open Mixed Doubles with Bob Bryan)
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"When I lost the first set, I understood I had no more choice than winning the next two." (Justine Henin-Hardenne) "I had a feeling today that Venus Williams would either win or lose." (Martina Navratilova) "From the beginning, I really felt the French Open would be different from the other majors. First of all, because it's played on clay." (Pam Shriver) "The difference between night and day is, er, night and day." (Tim Henman) "Soderling wanted that first set - it was part of his game plan." (Chris Bradnam, Eurosport commentator) "I don't understand what is going on. In practice, I beat everybody, but I lose all my matches. I am going home to practise and sort things out." (Sergei Bruguera) Andrew Castle: "Where are all these Serbians from?" Greg Rudseski: "Serbia?" (during Wimbledon 2007) "No, 'cause, I mean, the expectation for me is I'm gonna try my best to win the tournament. But it's the people that sort of are in the media, are in the press, and the people that read it are the ones that, you know, see the expectation getting bigger or greater or, you know, how my performances have been going, whatnot." (Andy Murray) "If I didn't make those errors, those double-faults, I certainly would have won the match." (Maria Sharapova, after 21 double faults and 63 unforced errors cost her the match against Melanie Oudin, US Open 2009)
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"When I'm 32? Hopefully I'll have made my mark with a few different movies, some scary ones and some comedies. I'm really funny, I have a great personality on the camera." (Serena Williams) "I would be really excellent in a horror film because I have a great scream. I'd be really good in a comedy too. I'm top, top, top quality." (Serena Williams) "I don't want to sound like I'm pontificating or anything but I think I'm really good at that - I'm the best. Besides Versace, Armani, I'm right up there." (Serena Williams on her skills as a fashion designer) "It's amazing, but I guess that happens when you become overly famous. Every week now, I get more famous." (Serena Williams on the 'bobblehead' doll created in her image) "I'm playing to around 30% of my potential - you'd be shocked at what I could do." (Serena Williams) "I'm an unbelievable designer. I don't know how I know and just do these things. I just start sketching and then I just know the colors and I always know the forecast. I know green and purple are going to be hot. I was born to be a designer. I worked hard to be a tennis player, I don't work hard to be a designer." (Serena Williams) "People seem to forget that Anna (Kournikova) isn't in the picture anymore. It's Maria-time now." (Maria Sharapova) "I'm really exciting. I smile a lot, I win a lot, and I'm really sexy." (Serena Williams) "A lot of these young girls, they don't even know what the game is about. They have never seen a drop shot, a slice and all the mixture and variety I have." (Martina Hingis) "I'm like a chameleon. I can kind of change and get my game going to whatever the situation is. If I play well, which I don't think I've even reached yet at all in this tournament, it's really hard for anyone to beat me." (Serena Williams at the 2007 Australian Open) "It's pretty hard being a tennis player and Mother Theresa at the same time and that's just the way it is." (Maria Sharapova) "With my website, I'm really interactive. I've written a lot of things about me." (Serena Williams) "We all know who the real number one is. Quite frankly, I'm the best in the world." (Serena Williams, after being toppled from the top spot by Dinara Safina, May 2009)
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"I just think she made a lot of lucky shots and I made a lot of errors." (Serena Williams after losing to Justine Henin in the 2007 US Open quarter-finals) "They just told us 'We're switching you to Armstrong (from Arthur Ashe)', and basically that's it. It's very unfair. From my side, I can say, I'm number one player in the world, why did they move me?" (World number one Dinara Safina blaming a late switch of court for her defeat at the hands of 72nd-ranked Petra Kvitova, US Open 2009) "I don't think she did anything too well. I just did unforced errors all the time. You don't have to do much. You just have to put the ball back. I was creating the point or I was losing it. This was it." (Svetlana Kuznetsova, after losing to Caroline Wozniacki, US Open 2009)
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"Today, something didn't feel right. I guess it's the puberty's fault." (Sesil Karatantcheva, after a 6-0 6-1 loss to Maria Sharapova) "There are no excuses. I could blame it on a lack of match practice time, or on playing the world number 10. I had a sore stomach as well." (Sania Mirza, Australian Open 2009) "A lot of people think that everything revolves around Wimbledon but it is just one week of the year for us. If nothing happens at Wimbledon, it's not the end of the world." (Elena Baltacha, after losing at Wimbledon 2009. Somebody tell her it's a two-week tournament!)
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"I don't have any desire to talk about women's tennis, because men's tennis is more attractive. It is easy to be successful in the women's, and you can't even compare the two. It is like soccer and women's soccer - there isn't even such a thing as women's soccer. They just invented a sport that didn't even exist. To play for an hour and earn the same amount of money that the men earn after we sweat for five hours is a joke and irrational." (Noam Okun) "At Wimbledon, the ladies are simply the candles on the cake." (John Newcombe) "Move your fat butt!" (Marcelo Rios addressing Monica Seles in a lunch queue at Wimbledon in 1997) "Some of these young girl players shouldn't be allowed out alone, they might fell me with one hand." (Abe Segal) "I may have exaggerated a bit when I said that 80 per cent of the top women tennis players are fat pigs. It's only 75 per cent." (Richard Krajicek) "A wading pool has more depth than women's tennis. Women's tennis is in trouble. Lindsay Davenport beat the world's 13th-ranked player Vera Zvonareva in less time it takes Andre Agassi to comb his hair ... Earlier in the tournament Australian Sam Stosur lost to Hungarian Aniko Kapros, who serves slower than a bad restaurant." ('The Australian' newspaper)
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"As long as I can get angry then I play well. If I play well I can beat everybody. I am happy because I am getting angry." (Ilie Nastase) "We did good match. The people enjoy the match. He's more happy than me, but I'm not sad, you know." (Juan Martin Del Potro, after losing to Andy Murray, US Open 2008, moments before abandoning his press conference in tears) "Maybe Top 600 in the Juniors" (Serena Williams, rating her game in 2008) "The one place it doesn't stir a debate is in the locker room. The players believe in that ranking system. They believe the ranking is right. And I have not had one player come up to me and say, 'How can Dinara Safina be No. 1 in the world?'" (Larry Scott, WTA Tour CEO, Wimbledon 2009. He obviously didn't visit the locker room when Serena Williams was there. How come he was in the women's locker room anyway?) "There are so many players who won a Grand Slam and where they are now? Nowhere. Some of the players you don't even know that they won a Grand Glam. You look and say like, 'Oh, my gosh, she won?' But number one will always stay there." (Dinara Safina, US Open 2009. Does she have a point?) "You get used to eating caviar." (Boris Becker)
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"It's like a movie. I make the movie, but I don't know the end. That's it." (Goran Ivanisevic) "You're winning a lot of matches this year, so I'm trying to get some positive energy from you." (Michael Llodra on jumping out of Ivan Ljubicic's locker completely naked) "She shaves her hands?" (Mary Carillo, on hearing that Mary Pierce was suffering from a cut on her hand that occurred while shaving) "A wallaby pooed on me, so that wasn't very nice." (Andy Murray on exploring Australia) "I'm proud to be a symbol like the army knife or the mountains." (Roger Federer on having his picture enshrined on a Swiss postage stamp) "I broke all my rackets. I didn't have a racket for the fifth set. I broke four. Now I hold the record. Now I go home. No rackets. I really don't like these rackets." (Nikolay Davydenko, US Open 2008) "I've been writing, but I haven't been writing. In my mind I've been saying I want to write, but I haven't actually physically picked up a pencil and started writing." (Serena Williams, on being asked about her off-court interests) "Everyone is from Russia. Sometimes I think I'm from Russia, too. All these new Ovas. I don't know anyone. I don't really recognise anyone. That's just how it is. I think my name must be Williamsova." (Serena Williams) "Well, when I walk behind short people I feel like I'm going to fall over because I start taking these little steps, and I can't take little steps." (Venus Williams) "Yeah, um, I do twitter because I want people to, you know, get to know me, my fans, or my fans to get to know me, you know, just see what type of person I am. You know, hopefully be more on an intimate level with me as opposed to a distant level." (Serena Williams) "How fitting [it would be if Roger Federer played the first match under the roof] ... he has become known in recent years as the King of Wimbledon ... and this is the day after of the death of the King of Pop." (Sue Barker, introducing Wimbledon 2009, the day after Michael Jackson died) "I always talk like I'm stupid. I prefer people to think I'm stupid." (Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena) "Can you tell your agent to buy some new sunglasses." (Brad Gilbert, interviewing Vera Zvonareva at the 2010 US Open) "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, talking about her 2011 Australian Open outfit) Venus Willia
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"I'm in the final, I played the final, I lost, it's just amazing." (Marcos Baghdatis on losing to Roger Federer in the 2006 Australian Open final) "I like to play here in US and I like hard courts. I like this tournament. I like everything." (Juan Martin Del Potro, US Open 2009)
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"It felt like you're in the Sahara and you just see the hills and there's no ending." (Kevin Kim on being asked what it was like playing against Rafael Nadal in the 2006 French Open) "Lately, my mind is like an orchestra. If you don't have the conductor, you don't know what to do. One guy is playing jazz, one guy is playing rock and roll, another classical. It's a big mess." (Goran Ivanisevic) "The physio came out and she asked me, 'Do you know like what is your name?' I just saw blurry. I didn't know. It was really strange feeling. I was scared and I started to cry in this kind of situation." (Jelena Jankovic, who carried on playing for another two sets, Wimbledon 2009)
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"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." (Vince Lombardi) "A man's reach should exceed his grasp - or what's a heaven for?" (Robert Browning) "We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough" (Helen Keller) "Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster" (Weston H Agor) "In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity" (Albert Einstein) "Your aspirations are your possibilities" (Samuel Johnson) "Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself" (Cicero) "You must do the thing you think you cannot do" (Eleanor Roosevelt) "Mistakes are the portals of discovery" (James Joyce) "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail" (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Always bear in mind that our own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing" (Abraham Lincoln) "No vision and you perish. No ideal, and you're lost. Your heart must ever cherish some faith at any cost. Some hope, some dream to cling to, some rainbow in the sky, some melody to sing to, some service that is high" (Harriet Du Autermont) "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." (Archie Griffen) "Pigeons flock. Eagles soar. You can aspire to be either." (D.W., tennisontheline) "It's a mental game. Reach higher by growing taller inside." (D.W., tennisontheline) "You play your best when you believe you deserve to win. If you work harder than your opponent, don't you deserve to win?" (D.W., tennisontheline) "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." (Mark Twain) "It's not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of the deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errors and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at least knows in the end the triumph of his achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." (Theodore Roosevelt) "Falling doesn't make you a failure, staying down does." "You never really lose, until you quit trying." "You'll never know how far you can go unless you take one more step." (D.W., tennisontheline) "Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball." (Billie Jean King) "There is only one number one. It is a lonely spot but it has got the best view of all." (Jimmy Connors) "There are no great people, only great challenges that ordinary people may undertake." (D.W., tennisontheline) "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." (Henry Ford) "Hard work is the only way to go. Strive to be the best you can be and remember that when you try your best, you can't ask any more from yourself, and people can't ask any more from you." (Michael Chang) "Think it, believe it, achieve it!" (D.W., tennisontheline) "The word timshel — 'Thou mayest' — that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man." (John Steinbeck) "Where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words: Yes. We. Can." (Barack Obama) "The only one who can tell you 'you can't' is you. And you don't have to listen." (Nike) "You may not be the winner, but there is a winner inside you." "It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up." (Vince Lombardi) "Winning isn't everything. Wanting to is."
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