When you do something best in life, you don't really want to give that up - and for me it's tennis.
―Roger Federer
Tennis, the game that tests a person's hard work, determination, and grit. A simple game of tennis is enough to inspire us in so many ways, and so are the quotes by some of the greatest legends of the game.
Through this Buzzle article, let's peep in to the lives of some of the greatest tennis stars through some of their notable quotes. Here's a collection of famous, inspiring, and funny tennis quotes, phrases, and one-liners.
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The fifth set is not about tennis, it's about nerves.
―Boris Becker
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I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.
―Boris Becker
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Girls had never been important. I'd had a girlfriend or two and had liked them a lot but it wasn't love, because my first love was tennis.
―Boris Becker
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Winning is a way of expressing yourself.
―Boris Becker
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Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts,' probably lost.
―Martina Navratilova
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The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are at their worst.
―Martina Navratilova
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The tennis ball doesn't know how old I am. The ball doesn't know if I'm a man or a woman or if I come from a communist country or not. Sport has always broken down these barriers.
―Martina Navratilova
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Just go out there and do what you have to do.
―Martina Navratilova
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Tennis has given me soul.
―Martina Navratilova
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You don't have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you're a good athlete, it doesn't mean you're not a woman.
―Martina Navratilova
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I can't become satisfied, because if I get satisfied, I'll be like, "Oh, I've won Wimbledon, I've won the U.S. Open. Now can I relax." But now people are really going to be fighting to beat me.
―Serena Williams
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I'm a perfectionist. I'm pretty much insatiable. I feel there's so many things I can improve on.
―Serena Williams
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I am here to play women's tennis. I'm a lady. Predominantly, most of the time I always like to play ladies.
―Serena Williams
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If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration.
―Serena Williams
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I want to reach absolute perfection. And I think I can reach it.
―Steffi Graf
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I never look back, I look forward.
―Steffi Graf
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Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed, but then I wouldn't have been the same player.
―Steffi Graf
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It's one-on-one out there, man. There ain't no hiding. I can't pass the ball.
―Pete Sampras
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I made it look so easy on court all those years. No one realized how hard I had to work. No one realized how much I had to put into it. They underestimated my intensity.
―Pete Sampras
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Tennis is mostly mental. Of course, you must have a lot of physical skill, but you can't play tennis well and not be a good thinker. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.
―Venus Williams
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The thing about tennis is if you stay off for two weeks, or just for three days, you can lose your rhythm quickly. So it's just a question of constant diligence and vigilance.
―Venus Williams
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My motto is: I'm alive, so that means I can do anything.
―Venus Williams
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I just try to stay positive and focused on the tennis, not let anything get to me, like crazy questions. But I'm tough, let me tell you, tough as nails.
―Venus Williams
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It is very important not to think about losing.
―Venus Williams
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Tennis is mostly mental. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.
―Venus Williams
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A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
―Billie Jean King
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Champions keep playing until they get it right.
―Billie Jean King
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Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility.
―Billie Jean King
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You have to find it. No one else can find it for you.
―Bjorn Borg
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The ball is round, the game is long.
―Bjorn Borg
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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
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Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.
―Arthur Ashe
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Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome.
―Arthur Ashe
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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
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You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.
―Arthur Ashe
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I'm not the best player in the history of tennis. I think I'm amongst the best. That's true. That's enough for me.
―Rafael Nadal
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Is only a tennis match. At the end, that's life. There is much more important things.
―Rafael Nadal
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Losing is not my enemy, fear of losing is my enemy.
―Rafael Nadal
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I play each point like my life depends on it.
―Rafael Nadal
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I'm only superstitious on the tennis court.
―Rafael Nadal
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Tennis is a hard sport. There is a lot of competition all year and you play alone.
―Rafael Nadal
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Being number two sucks.
―Andre Agassi
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The great part about tennis is you can't run out the clock.... As long as we were still playing, I had a chance.
―Andre Agassi
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Freed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic.
―Andre Agassi
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Tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love - the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature.
―Andre Agassi
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You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, 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
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What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.
―Andre Agassi
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I want my tennis to speak for everything.
―Maria Sharapova
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I've been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience.
―Maria Sharapova
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When you start from nothing, when you come from nothing, it makes you hungry. I am proud of where I came from and I know what I want. I want to win.
―Maria Sharapova
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If you're a champion, you have to have it in your heart.
―Chris Evert
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If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there's going to be a life after tennis that's a lot longer than your tennis life.
―Chris Evert
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I just try to play tennis and don't find excuses. You know, I just lost because I lost, not because my arm was sore.
―Goran Ivanišević
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I'm not afraid of anyone, but sometimes I'm afraid of myself.
―Justine Henin
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The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.
―Mitch Hedberg
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I'll let the racket do the talking.
―John McEnroe
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What is the single most important quality in a tennis champion? I would have to say desire, staying in there and winning matches when you are not playing that well.
―John McEnroe
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There's too much money and too many nice guys around.
―John McEnroe
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Spectacular performances are preceded by spectacular preparation.
―Frank Giampaolo
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Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
―Robert Frost
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I am the best tennis player who cannot play tennis.
―Ion Tiriac
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You have to believe in the long term plan you have but you need the short term goals to motivate and inspire you.
―Roger Federer
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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
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In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach.
―Andy Murray
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As a tennis player, you have to get used to losing every week. Unless you win the tournament, you always go home as a loser. But you have to take the positive out of a defeat and go back to work. Improve to fail better.
―Stanislas Wawrinka
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Tennis belongs to the individualistic past - a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.
―Jacques Barzun
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I have always considered tennis as a combat in an arena between two gladiators who have their racquets and their courage as their weapons.
―Yannick Noah
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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.
―J.M. Barrie
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Tennis is an addiction that once it has truly hooked a man will not let him go.
―Russell Lynes
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The serve was invented so that the net could play.
―Bill Cosby
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You don't have to hate your opponents to beat them.
―Kim Clijsters
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What rivalry? I win all the matches.
―Martina Hingis
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Every time I hit the ball on the wall I uses to pretend I was there (Wimbledon). When I went to sleep I used to pretend I was there.
―Evonne Goolagong
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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
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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
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If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.
―Marat Safin
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Tennis is a mental game. Everyone is fit, everyone hits great forehands and backhands.
―Novak Djokovic
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Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.
―Roger Kahn
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Tennis lets you talk while you're playing.
―Jane Kaczmarek
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As tennis players, you are never satisfied. We are greedy as players, always want better results.
―Sania Mirza
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Tennis: a racquet sport in which two players compete to see who has the shortest temper, the worst memory, the poorest eyesight, and the slowest watch.
―Anonymous
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Tennis begins with love.
―Anonymous
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To err is human. To put blame on someone else is doubles.
―Anonymous
These quotes show the passion and dedication that tennis players have towards their sport, along with a sense of humor when handling intense pressure.
