Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I need to get better as a player, I need to get fitter, and I need to get better on the mental side. It's exciting for me, because there's so much I could do better. I don't feel like I've really maxed out any shot. People talk about my serve, but I think that can even get better.
It's important to have people around you with enough confidence to say if you are not acting in a good way. Normally, when you are at the top, people say everything is fantastic. Probably in that moment it is what you want to hear, but it's best to be reminded how to act properly.
Manners are manners. Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase have no respect. I don't want my kid seeing Nastase play. The demeanor you show on the court is important to tennis.... Maybe we (yesterday's stars) were too stereotyped. But we were told to behave or they'd take our racket away.
Funny thing about the volatile and biased French crowds. While they'd prefer to be cheering a countryman and giving his foreign opponent merry hell, if there was no Frenchman in the game, they'd always support a Continental player over an Englishman, an American, or an Australian.
Before, I guess, mum and dad were everything, but now, in my case, I had two new girls and all of a sudden they're completely dependent on you and there's a third generation. It's a funny shift all of a sudden. You have the babies, you have yourself and then you have your parents.
The players should appreciate how lucky they are with the opportunities they've got, and they've got to get out there and maximise that. That's what success is about and unfortunately in British tennis there are too many people over the years who haven't maximised their potential.
You have to have the mentality of executing your game when you don't feel like there's a lot of hope. I think the best feeling is when somebody pushes you to the limit and you dig down a little bit extra. By the same token, you also need a little luck. Sometimes they come together.
When you make the schedule, you're not planning on playing deep into every single week, or at least I haven't in the past. I'm not physically or mentally ready to pick up my bags and go to Monte Carlo. I definitely have to look at what's best for my chances at (at the French Open).
The best way I knew how was to give 110% and want it more than them, and walk on the court and every moment of the match feel like it was the end of the world, in a sense. So that worked for me in a lot of ways. There were times that it hurt me, but for the most part, it helped me.
I wasn't embarrassed that I'd had a stroke, but I just didn't want people to think I was milking it or looking for sympathy. It happened, and I dealt with it. Afterwards, I tried to do what I could for other people who had strokes, speaking at hospitals that treated stroke victims.
There are so many steps you have to go through to reach a high level, so you're kind of building your own, I would say, mountain. You have to go piece by piece by piece. When you're young and really ambitious, you want to jump right up. It kind of teaches you a lesson, I would say.
You can look directly at the NFL and see how successful they've become because they have central control, central voice, and it doesn't mean that the owners don't have a say, but the commissioner runs it, and he's the one who speaks for them when they go out and do commercial deals.
I didn't miss training because it had become so painful for me. I filled the void pretty quickly as I went straight into coaching and it was great; I had to start learning all over again, and then when I went into TV I knew nothing about it so I had to start from the very beginning.
Every player, they should sit down and have a meeting. They should agree, 'this is how we play Nadal, this is how we play Federer, this is how we play Djokovic.' Then, all try to play them the same way. The right way. First you have to play the right way, then you need to play well.
I think people tend to forget that as celebrities we are still human. We have the same emotions - we cry, we have fun, we laugh, we get sad, and we get hurt. When something is written about you, which millions of people are reading, and it is not true, imagine how hurtful it can be.
For me, motivation is easy. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm lucky to play tennis. I enjoy the suffering. It's something quite natural for me to go on the court and suffer, and to go in the gym and to suffer, and to know the only way to get better is to work out - that's what I like.
I used to always want to play the perfect match, and this meant not losing a point. The realisation came around the time I was 19 years old, in the French Open final in 2007. This was a key period in my career. I was told I was going for too many winners, which was affecting my game.
Barcelona, the tournament is, for all the Spanish players, an amazing event. I think is one of the top events on tour because is a historic event with a lot of tradition. A lot of years of the tournament, a lot of great players have been playing there. And it's in a real tennis club.
It occurred to me that it would benefit me to play without emotion - well, without emotion others could see, anyway. Card players profited from having a poker face so opponents wouldn't know how good or bad their hand was, and I figured a deadpan expression would work in tennis, too.
I keep like simple thing in my head, so obviously is working. Then it's luck. To be honest, look at set point. I hit one of the worst drop shots I ever hit and he hit a frame It's pure luck, you know, to haven't drop a set. So you need to have it sometime, and I hope I will have more.
When people are coming to Krakow and we show them how and where we practice, they are like, 'Seriously? Are you kidding me?' But we're always saying that what matters about the courts - the lines, the nets - are the same. I'm practicing in Poland even when I don't have good facilities.
I've been involved with Berlei for almost my whole career. I actually discovered them well over 10 years ago, probably 2002 at least. My mom introduced me. She said, "Listen, you should try these bras." And I was like, "Really?" So I tried it and since then I've never worn another bra.
My speed is something that has made a difference to my whole career. When I've felt quick and I'm moving well, it makes a huge difference to my entire game. When I feel a bit slower, I end up doing a lot more defending. When I'm a bit quicker to the ball, I feel I can attack a lot more.
I'll never lose my roots. I think I'm too close to my family for that. I still make my trip back to Nebraska every year, and I still love going back to Texas where I grew up, as well. I've just kind of had to mature a little bit more and get used to a little bit different style of life.
It's one thing if you live in London and you're rooting for Chelsea or you're in New York and you love the Giants or Jets and no matter who's on the team you're into it. It's different in tennis; you're sort of your own guy, so you have to reach out and grab a person in a different way.
Physically, I have to get a lot better, ... I have to play these three setters and the points are going to go on and on. This is not something that is going to happen overnight. I am only 18 and this is going to take time. My body is still growing and I'm still adjusting to my own body.
I am afraid of a lot of things. A dog. I could be afraid of a dog that's upset, for example. And on the tennis courts, maybe on the outside I look fearless, but on the inside, I'm scared. There's not one player in the world who isn't nervous before matches. Especially important matches.
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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.
Ivan Lendl was the best player I ever played. He was the first guy to bring the game to more of a power level and you could know that if he played really well you could get blown off court and that wouldn't happen against John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors or even Bjorn Borg or Guillermo Vilas.
Stay healthy, do sports and above all have fun while doing sport. Competing or just for fun, whatever, simply enjoy and try your best. Working hard, working well with achievable goals normally pays off. Believe in the people that are with you and listen to those who have more experience.
You fight, you try your best, but if you lose, you dont have to break five racquets and smash up the locker room. You can do those things, but when youve finished, nothings changed. Youve still lost. If something positive came from that, I probably would do it. But I see only negativity.
Those who say that Serena isn't serious about tennis; she wants to go Hollywood. That's true, about Hollywood. I would love to get a lot of acting gigs. But you wouldn't believe the stuff I've turned down because of my tournament schedule...I would do well beside (comedian) Chris Tucker.
Definitely sport matures you, if you let it. It definitely makes you grow up because you have to work so hard that if you can't, then you probably aren't going to have the mental capacity to handle it all. That probably played a role in growing up a little faster than maybe other people.
I got to play in a crowd, play in Wimbledon finals, be the guy on a Davis Cup team for a while. Those are opportunities not a lot of people get. As much as I was disappointed and frustrated at times, I'm not sure that I ever felt sorry for myself or begrudged anybody any of their success.
Billie Jean King is one of the all-time tennis greats; she's one of the superstars. She's ready for the big one, but she doesn't stand a chance against me. Women's tennis is so far beneath men's tennis; that's what makes the contest with a 55-year-old man the greatest contest of all time.
We're criminalizing economic inability to stay out of the system. Women get penalized more than men for the same crime; blacks get penalized more than whites for the same crime. We need to bring out more into the light, because it's not fair... I applaud Colin Kaepernick for speaking out.
I didn't realize until I was doing commentary what a gladiator-like competition tennis is - other than no one dies. The crowd is waiting for the players to come, and they walk through the tunnel, and they get on the court, and they get out their rackets, their weapons, and now they start.
I have a great record against anybody right now, so it doesn't really matter who I play in the final. I'll be in there as the big favorite. But I play my best in the finals, in the important matches. That's why I'm number one. There's no secret...I'm not overconfident, but very confident.
People think that there is so much money in tennis, but the reality is unless you're ranked in about the top 50 you don't earn much at all. It is hard to support yourself travelling the world, to be away from home most of the year and to pay for a coach to help you become a better player.
I think everyone deals with things in their own way. Everybody's different. My family are all different. None of us are the same. We all deal with different things in different ways. I think it's about knowing yourself, what pushes your buttons, and figuring out how to work with yourself.
I've learned how to sleep on airplanes. When I'm taking a trans-Atlantic flight or going to a different continent, I will always read because reading puts me to sleep. When you watch a movie, you have all that light coming to your eyes, but with reading, I can't get through 15 or 20 pages.
I can definitely say the same thing [discussing Steffi Graf's claim that she had played against at least one top player who used steroids]. Steroids can really make a difference, physically and mentally. I'd be really disappointed if I had been ranked No. 2 behind someone who took steroids.
I was a different kind of player as a kid and didn't do too much shouting and screaming. If things didn't go my way, I tended to get a bit overwhelmed. All I wanted to do was cry on my mom's shoulder. I didn't know how to handle defeat in front of a crowd, and I didn't want to be the loser.
Wimbledon 2014 will be my last slam. To be honest, I am already starting to miss professional tennis, having played at the highest level for two decades. It is what has given me my identity, and I will miss every bit of the action. The thought that I will not be playing anymore is daunting.
I meet people who say, "Girl, I watch every match, and I pray for you." I feel that energy and those prayers. Sometimes when I'm down on the court, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "They want me to win. Is there anything else I can give?" It encourages me to do better, to fight harder.
I think all of us who kind of live within the sport recognize that Davis Cup certainly could be a little more visible if perhaps there were some adjustments made to it, and it was made a little bit more easy to understand for the fans, if there's a little bit more of a start and finish line.
The fact that nobody played tennis in my family and you'd say by chance they make three tennis courts in front of the restaurant that my family owned when I was 4, I think that's a destiny. That's kind of life circumstances that kind of come together for you to become who you want to become.
You fight, you try your best, but if you lose, you don't have to break five racquets and smash up the locker room. You can do those things, but when you've finished, nothing's changed. You've still lost. If something positive came from that, I probably would do it. But I see only negativity.
I'm a big supporter of this product for women. And [my relationship with the brand Berlei] was so organic. I would go to the store and buy 40 or 50 bras every year because I could only get them in Australia at the time. And then eventually they heard that I would come and take all the stock.