Booing – I never like it. We see it in other sports all the time, but in tennis, it’s rare.
In tennis, you can have a bad set and still win. The part of track cycling that is difficult to find in other sports is that it’s so final; there’s no second chance if you make a mistake.
I admire Roger Federer, not only for his tennis but also for his personality.
What I’ve realised is that you can run miles, jump on a bike, lift weights, and all that other garbage, but the bottom line is that you get in tennis shape by playing tennis. You build the right muscles, and I don’t believe people can do it as successfully any other way.
It’s that I have a good personality and am a good tennis player.
In terms of my free time, I really don’t have much. The time I do have, I enjoy being domestic and spending time with my girlfriend, hiking and playing tennis.
When I was younger, I was a little bit fat. I wasn’t, like, big-time fat; I was just overweight – maybe around when I was 13 or 14. At that time, I wasn’t practicing that much; tennis was just a hobby. But it wasn’t easy to feel that way.
Tennis is the purest form of democracy. There was a symbiotic, chicken-and-egg relationship for me between democracy and tennis.
I wouldn’t advocate anything to anybody – everybody’s different. Some people can put on those toe shoes and think they’re having a better work out than those in tennis shoes. Everybody can advocate their own way of doing something.
White folks may let you in their country clubs to play golf, invite you out to dinner, take you out to play tennis, but when it comes to dividing up the money, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
I was playing good tennis up until 100.
In polo, you jump on a horse and you play. To play tennis, you have to train every day. It’s your legs that do all the work. In polo, it’s the horses’ legs.
I have always been very dedicated to tennis, and it’s true that I made some compromises in my life. For example, I never went out to parties when I was younger, and I spent less time with friends.
Tennis has given me so many opportunities, and I feel very lucky to have achieved whatever I have, especially coming from a country that does not have a great history in the game.
Team sports, there’s always some kind of sacrifice happening… A team, if we lose, if Michael Jordan has a bad night, you hang it on him a little bit… but if you lose as a tennis player, you have no one to blame but yourself, and that’s a different beast.
When I discovered European filmmakers, it affected me so deeply. It redefined what cinema could be. I mean, ‘Blow-Up’ ends with a dead body and mimes playing tennis. What?
I’m the girl who’s like, ‘Why wear heels when I can wear tennis shoes and be comfortable?’ I’ve always been the girl who’s like, ‘Let’s go play basketball.’
One thing my dad always told me, was he would make sure I always had what he didn’t have. He couldn’t play basketball because he didn’t have tennis shoes – so I had five pairs of tennis shoes.
Billie and I did wonders for women’s tennis. They owe me a piece of their checks.
My best tennis at my peak was when I played a lot of matches.
There was always sibling rivalry. Tennis, football, boxing, whatever – you always want to come out on top of big sis.
When I don’t enjoy it anymore, I’ll stop. But I think as long as people want me to be where the action is, I’ll be there. I just love to play tennis.
If I need a pair of tennis shorts, I’ll buy them online. I don’t really care. Not going to go and try on a pair and see how my bum looks. Who cares? But for things that you care about – I mean, a jacket and a pair of trousers, you’ve got to try them on.
There is so many things to do in life rather than playing tennis, so I’m sure I will find something. I just need a bit of time to kind of settle down.
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.
I love tennis, but I just don’t like grass.
I’ve played too many tennis hours.
Chemistry is really about two people who like to act together, I think. It’s like tennis in the most cliched way. It’s like if you hit the ball, they hit the ball back, and they don’t hit it into the stands, and they don’t put the ball in their pocket and walk off – and they don’t argue with the umpire, you know?
I grew up surrounded by tennis, so I was obviously more interested in it than football – particularly as it’s the most popular sport.
Safin, in his way, is very talented. It is a joy to watch them play; it is tennis of a very high quality.
‘Oh and Oh’ is a tennis term… It’s a nice way of saying you took your opponent to pieces.
It’s silly to say it about a tennis player, but I’m an unbelievable hero in Germany. And Germany needs heroes more than any place.
I grew up on the tennis court with lots of other kids. There were like 40 kids all afternoon and I was one of the youngest ones, so I always had to chase everybody to keep up.
Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben – an incredible tennis player – loved jazz. Jazz musicians used to stay at their house.
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.
I think I will always stay involved in tennis and would like to give back by helping out young players. I have done a little commentary and may one day enjoy doing that again.
If you look at tennis, the girls have become much more attractive; they wear makeup. In my generation, you were a tennis player. It wasn’t like you had to look a certain way.
I don’t watch much tennis, never really have.
If you look at the figures, the average age of the tennis fan is 62 years old.
I’m just super competitive. Squash, tennis, water skiing, computer games… Even if I played you at pool, I’d have to win.
I joined the Indian Police Service as a tough woman, a woman with indefatigable stamina, because I used to run for my tennis titles, etc.
Nick Kyrgios, if you don’t want to be a professional tennis player, do something else.
Tennis is for me joy, nothing less than that.
I think tennis is very different than most of the other sports when you have the opportunity to go pro. For me, it was pretty simple. Tennis was always an individual sport, and your direct results determined where you could go and what you could do.
Women are everywhere. We’re letting them play golf and tennis now. It’s out of control.
My next project is ‘Venus Vs,’ which is a documentary that follows tennis star Venus Williams and her effort to get equal-award pay for women at Wimbledon. Most people don’t realize that Venus fought for years to make sure women and men winners of that tennis championship received the same amount in award money.
My father used to play ice hockey, though not at a high level, and my mother wasn’t involved in sport at all, but they were keen that we played some sort of sport. They chose tennis because they thought it was a good sport for girls to play.
I started playing street hockey, but there were tennis courts near my house, and it was my father who suggested I try. I don’t really know why.
I just wanted to play tennis. It wasn’t a job. It was an ambition. I knew I could make money at it. I was 18 – old enough to think I could do it, young enough not to consider the consequences.
Before, I would play a little hoops, a little tennis. Now it’s more yoga, Pilates, stretching, some light weight work, push-ups, sit-ups, resistance things. When I used to live on the eleventh floor, I would take the steps. I don’t do that so much now. I’m taking the elevator a bit more these days.
It starts with family – they’ve sacrificed so much for me, with my parents moving away from each other when we were young, for tennis.
The most challenging thing is people do see me as a tennis player, but I’ve had a lot of opportunities because I am a tennis player. And I don’t mind that.
Tennis has been a part of my life since I was five years old.
You will never have great tennis champions from England because of the cold and dark, but most of all because people only care about the sport for two weeks a year, and then they’re on to something else. There’s just not a great love of the sport there.
The first rounds of a tournament are always tricky because playing tennis takes a lot out of you.
I have to use other things to help my tennis, like my brain. But I believe that, even when your muscles are not so fast, with the brain and with concentration you can compensate.
I think English is very important for tennis players. To be on the tour, it’s much more easier if you speak English. So that’s why I knew that I have to improve my English.
I make movies the same way other kids play tennis or go to piano lessons. I’m trying to get better at what I want to do, just like other kids are trying to get better at what they want to do.
Tennis is definitely a star for women in sports.
