Frances Tiafoe Quotes

As a kid, I wanted to be a pro tennis player. I was pretty good; at the tennis academies I attended, I always 'played up' against older age groups.

That top 100 is a big barrier that every tennis player strives to break into.

I knew I was going to play pro tennis when I was 12.

I actually wanted to be a tennis player.

Before I got addicted to comedy, I was seriously thinking about playing tennis full time. I joined the tennis team and played with a lot of professionals.

When you play Futures and Challengers for three, four years, you're playing in obscurity. You play the game for other reasons. You don't play the game for money or attention. You play the game because you like to play. You play the game because you enjoy the journey.

I never thought I was going to make a career out of tennis, to be honest, until I was 10 or 11 years old. One of my earliest memories is when I was seven, and I was competing against players that were three, four years older than me. I didn't take it too seriously at the time. I was having a lot of fun.

At the very beginning of my career, when I opened my business in Italy, I was also a ranked tennis player. I had won many tournaments. To be an athlete was my first choice. Second choice: designer. However! There was more money in being a designer at that time.

This is a dream from when I was kid. I'm playing tennis almost 18 years, and of course everybody's dream is to play the final of a Grand Slam.

You want to try and win as many slams as possible in your career. As a tennis player, that's what we always dream of as a kid, wanting to play slams, wanting to win them.

One day my dad would say, 'OK, if you want to play tennis I can help you out.' And that's how it started. And I had a goal. I wanted to beat my mom first. And my parents and my brother. And that was the ultimate goal.

Playing in a main draw Grand Slam is something you dream about as a kid.

Winning a Grand Slam was something I was chasing the first day I became a coach.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a tennis player.

I did interviews with tennis greats, like James Blake and John Isner. I also interviewed tennis pros who aren't well - known but who made all the same sacrifices but had just a little spark of a professional career and are now still orbiting the sport, either as a teaching pro or a coach.

I always watched these tournaments and want to be seeded and get the bye and be in the second week of Slams and all that.

I always wanted to be a professional player, but when I started playing well in Challengers and, for the first time, I did well at ATP tournaments, I saw that these guys are also beatable.

I'm not the next Kournikova-I want to win matches!

It's unbelievable, it never gets too old. The biggest goal in my career is winning Grand Slams. I don't have a great record in finals, but I'm getting closer to .500, which is nice.

I'm not the savior of men's tennis in America. I'm just a kid trying to win a few matches.

To be a professional tennis player you need to put in these sort of hours.

I like playing tennis. I've always enjoyed the process of being a tennis player; I'm just not sure that I enjoyed the travel at the end, and my body didn't recover from the day-to-day grind.

If I'm going to be out there, I want to be in the top 10 and really have a chance of winning a Grand Slam.

I began playing in the senior circuit when I was 15 and won the world senior amateur title the same year.

But, I would say when I was four years old and I was at the Alan King Tennis Tournament and I was hitting with all the pros that would come to town. They would get me on the court or take notice and that stayed with me.