Petra Kvitova Quotes

The tennis challenger starts strong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The champion racks up the games. But in the final set, when the challenger has nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant, daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the champion must work hard to get those last points.

The great part about tennis is you can't run out the clock.... As long as we were still playing, I had a chance.

The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who perform great feats before friendly crowds. Greatness in major league sports is the ability to win in a stadium filled with people who are pulling for you to lose.

Tennis is the loneliest sport.

Ninety percent of hockey is mental and the other half is physical.

I played Mary Joe Fernandez in the semifinals. She was winning the first set. Second set was very close. I started to play this aggressive game. I think I surprised them.

Tennis is best of three sets, so even if I lose the first set, I still have a chance.

Playing a best of five-set match, you can always bounce back, even if you lose the first set.

I played professional tennis for about six years and I played football and handball in school as well.

Been dealing with pressure since I've been playing sports, so that's why I play the position. It's a pressure-packed position and I love it.

Whenever you go up 2-0, you understand that teams are going to be desperate.

I try not to make a habit of spending the whole year losing in the first rounds of events, but tennis is one of those sports where nothing is guaranteed.

When you play the Grand Slam, you have just to give everything you have.

When I wrestled, I always considered myself an athlete and a wrestler.

Sports allow men to build up situations of emergency. What he then demands of himself is unnecessary achievement - and unnecessary sacrifice. He artificially creates the tension that he has been spared by affluent society.

It's no accident, I think, that 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. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it's all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It's our choice.

It's funny, you can get over the win pretty quick and get ready for the next opponent. When you lose, it just eats at you.... What could we have done? What should I have done? All those things. Just part of playing professional sports and sports in general.

It was tough, I gave everything I had on those match points but she just came up with better shots. I still find it very hard to believe. Its amazing.

Losing is the bane and bugbear of every professional athlete's existence, but in baseball the monster seems to hang closer than in other sports, its chilly claws and foul breath palpable around the neck hairs of the infielder bending for his crosshand scoop or the reliever slipping his first two fingers off-center on the ball seams before delivering his two-and-two cut fastball.

Greatest thing in life: Winning a tennis match. Second greatest thing in life: Losing a tennis match

An otherwise happily married couple may turn a mixed doubles game into a scene from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Tennis is a funny game; unbelievable highs and the lows are just as low.

A man will reveal his true self, or so it seems, on the tennis court.

The greatest feeling in the world is to win a major league game. The second-greatest feeling is to lose a major league game.

I perhaps could have been somewhat better. One of the interesting things about playing competitive sports as a child is that you confront your own limitations rather starkly at a certain point.