Words matter. These are the best Rod Laver Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
It can be a daunting prospect for any player to know that his opponent will never, ever quit.
Camaraderie builds. We travelled together to Rome, Paris, Wimbledon, the U.S., lots of places. In a way, I miss it right now. My opponents were also my best friends.
As a tennis player, you have a record, and that is what counts. I feel like I enjoyed myself, and I’m proud of what I accomplished.
Forty years ago, the players were like a travelling circus – we went everywhere together and were pretty good friends.
I’m usually pretty good in the garden.
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.
Players who win on a clay surface are those who can control the ball, playing steadily and accurately from the back-court, keeping the ball in play and moving it around with changes of speed and spin, and resisting the temptation to over-hit.
I saw Kyrgios down in Australia. He played some very good tennis, won two or three matches, and has done the same here at Wimbledon. I think Australia’s got a good prospect in Kyrgios.
Looking back, in comparison, there wasn’t that much that you could do with a wooden racket. In my day, the matches were certainly much less demanding physically.
I don’t know much about Mauresmo apart from the fact she played great tennis. Is she a good technician? I don’t know those parameters.
Tennis was a big part of my life from as far back as I can remember.
When you’ve got your man down, rub him out.
Yes, I hit with heavy top-spin, but when you look at the little rackets I played with, the Maxply Dunlop, you had to hit the very centre all the time. I had my share of miss-hits.
We were pretty darn good – fit and ready to play – but today’s level is different. Those ground strokes are ever so much faster, coming back at you at a pretty good speed. Footwork-wise, you’ve got to be ready to hit that next shot. It’s a tough time.
There’s a lot of ingredients go into being a good tennis player.
The next point – that’s all you must think about.
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.
Each match is a huge effort from a physical point of view. You can only hit so many balls before your elbow or some part of your body is going to say, ‘Hey, don’t do that to me.’
I don’t want to get blase about being recognised. It’s pretty amazing.
The time your game is most vulnerable is when you’re ahead; never let up.
