Here's a collection of famous, inspiring, and funny tennis quotes, phrases, and one-liners.
The fifth set is not about tennis, it's about nerves.―Boris Becker
I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.―Boris Becker
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
Winning is a way of expressing yourself.―Boris Becker
Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts,' probably lost.―Martina Navratilova
―Martina Navratilova
The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are at their worst.
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
―Martina Navratilova
Just go out there and do what you have to do.
Tennis has given me soul.―Martina Navratilova
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
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
I'm a perfectionist. I'm pretty much insatiable. I feel there's so many things I can improve on.―Serena Williams
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
If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration.―Serena Williams
I want to reach absolute perfection. And I think I can reach it.―Steffi Graf
I never look back, I look forward.―Steffi Graf
Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed, but then I wouldn't have been the same player.―Steffi Graf
It's one-on-one out there, man. There ain't no hiding. I can't pass the ball.―Pete Sampras
―Pete Sampras
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.
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
―Venus Williams
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.
My motto is: I'm alive, so that means I can do anything.―Venus Williams
―Venus Williams
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.
It is very important not to think about losing.―Venus Williams
Tennis is mostly mental. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.―Venus Williams
A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.―Billie Jean King
―Billie Jean King
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility.―Billie Jean King
You have to find it. No one else can find it for you.―Bjorn Borg
―Bjorn Borg
The ball is round, the game is long.
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
Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.―Arthur Ashe
―Arthur Ashe
Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome.
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've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.―Arthur Ashe
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
Is only a tennis match. At the end, that's life. There is much more important things.―Rafael Nadal
Losing is not my enemy, fear of losing is my enemy.―Rafael Nadal
I play each point like my life depends on it.―Rafael Nadal
I'm only superstitious on the tennis court.―Rafael Nadal
Tennis is a hard sport. There is a lot of competition all year and you play alone.―Rafael Nadal
Being number two sucks.―Andre Agassi
―Andre Agassi
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
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.
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
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
―Andre Agassi
What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.
I want my tennis to speak for everything.―Maria Sharapova
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
―Maria Sharapova
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.
―Chris Evert
If you're a champion, you have to have it in your heart.
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
―Goran Ivanišević
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.
―Justine Henin
I'm not afraid of anyone, but sometimes I'm afraid of myself.
The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.―Mitch Hedberg
I'll let the racket do the talking.―John McEnroe
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
There's too much money and too many nice guys around.―John McEnroe
Spectacular performances are preceded by spectacular preparation.―Frank Giampaolo
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.―Robert Frost
I am the best tennis player who cannot play tennis.―Ion Tiriac
You have to believe in the long term plan you have but you need the short term goals to motivate and inspire you.
―Andy Roddick
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 Murray
In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach.
―Stanislas Wawrinka
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.
Tennis belongs to the individualistic past - a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.―Jacques Barzun
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
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
Tennis is an addiction that once it has truly hooked a man will not let him go.―Russell Lynes
The serve was invented so that the net could play.―Bill Cosby
You don't have to hate your opponents to beat them.―Kim Clijsters
What rivalry? I win all the matches.―Martina Hingis
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
―Novak Djokovic
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.
―Martin Amis
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.
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
Tennis is a mental game. Everyone is fit, everyone hits great forehands and backhands.―Novak Djokovic
Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.―Roger Kahn
Tennis lets you talk while you're playing.―Jane Kaczmarek
As tennis players, you are never satisfied. We are greedy as players, always want better results.―Sania Mirza
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
Tennis begins with love.―Anonymous
To err is human. To put blame on someone else is doubles.―Anonymous
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