Tennis Culture Quotes

To me, Dan Evans is an example of somebody that puts the clock back a little bit and tells everybody: 'Listen, tennis is not a freak sport where you need to have rich parents, who sit in your players' box for every single week of the whole year, and you need to talk to your coaches' box between every shot.'

No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, but tennis players talk to themselves-and answer. Tennis players look like lunatics in a public square.

It was okay for Wayne Gretzky's dad, for instance, to give him a hockey stick, or Joe Montana's dad to give him a football, or Larry Bird's dad to give him a basketball, but it wasn't okay for Gloria Connors to give her son a tennis racquet.

I used to be told if I talked about my sexuality in any way that we wouldn't have a tennis tour.

That's why I enjoy Davis Cup, and I really enjoyed college tennis. It's very special. You want to go out there and compete your hardest, because you don't want to let anyone down. You want to absolutely give it your all for your team. And that's sort of the mentality I've taken to pro tennis.

India has a very good tradition in tennis.

Tennis is still very successful in spite of itself.

The way we score is complicated. The rules are strict. The goal on the court is to show nothing, and then when you show something you are a bad person. Getting angry is not allowed. The show that you see on TV is not exciting, like the NFL or NBA, because you are seeing robots.

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.

When I need to get into details, I like French. But when I want to do something stronger, English is better. The swear words are stronger in English. And on the court, 'Allez!' is light. 'Come on!' That's strong.

The old boys' club of closed tennis court relationships is on the way out.

Coming from a country that loves tennis, actually, there are a lot of people who play. We definitely face a lot of challenges when it comes to producing tennis players.

My father actually moved out from Chicago just so he could play tennis 365 days a year, so it was - it was a place we played every day. We played before school. We played after school. We woke up. We played tennis. We brushed our teeth in that order.

I don't think the tennis tour is the place to have friends

Tennis is a small world.

There were times when I asked myself whether I was being principled or simply a coward.... I was wrapped in the cocoon of tennis early in life, mainly by blacks like my most powerful mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson of Lynchburg, Virginia. They insisted that I be unfailingly polite on the court, unfalteringly calm and detached, so that whites could never accuse me of meanness. I learned well. I look at photographs of the skinny, frail, little black boy that I was in the early 1950s, and I see that I was my tennis racquet and my tennis racquet was me. It was my rod and my staff.

A lot of the players are very complimentary about each other; they embrace at the end of matches because the level of the tennis has been so good. I think that's something that tennis has got to be proud of.

In Argentina at various tournaments, it's great. Every day it's full, everybody's crazy about tennis, everybody wants to play tennis.

There are people who live, breathe and dress tennis.

I do play tennis in shorts, I have driven across the length and breadth of the country from Khardung La pass to Kanyakumari in my beloved Ambassador car, and I did compile my 100 Lyrics book, inspired by Lyrics by Sting. I don't subscribe to any definition of an Urdu poet.

Nobody actually played tennis in my family.

People outside of tennis, all the famous actors and everyone, knows Wimbledon.

Tennis does need variety, excitement, and personality.

When I started playing tennis in Class V, I used to be the only girl on the court along with 20-odd boys. So, I am used to being in the company of boys. In fact, I have very few girlfriends, and even my besties are boys; I find it much easier to get along with them.

Tennis needs some different personalities and a lot more emotions.