Top 92 Tennis Quotes

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Tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world. With that in mind, check out the top 92 tennis quotes.

#92 – 90. Tennis Quotes

92. Tennis is mostly mental. Of course, you must have a lot of physical skill, but you can’t play tennis well and not be a good thinker. You win or lose the match before you even go out there. – Venus Williams

91. Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility. – Billie Jean King

90. Girls had never been important. I’d had a girlfriend or two and had liked them a lot but it wasn’t love, because my first love was tennis. – Boris Becker

#89 – 80. Tennis Quotes

89. I told myself to play free. You play the ball. You don’t play the opponent. Be free in your head. Be free in your shots. Go for it. The brave will be rewarded here. – Roger Federer

88. In tennis, the addict moves about a hard rectangle and seeks to ambush a fuzzy ball with a modified snow-shoe. -Elliot Chaze

87. As a tennis player, you have to get used to losing every week. Unless you win the tournament, you always go home as a loser. But you have to take the positive out of a defeat and go back to work. Improve to fail better. – Stanislas Wawrinka

86. It combines physical prowess with an incredible mental challenge that’s there no matter what level you’re playing at. – Richard Evans

85. If you watch Rafa on TV, then you can see it’s brutal, but still, you write it off as being that way at the professional level. – Richard Evans

84. At your general club level, this is still such a brutal game though. – Richard Evans

83. Winning is a way of expressing yourself. – Boris Becker

82. You don’t have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you’re a good athlete, it doesn’t mean you’re not a woman. – Martina Navratilova

81. If you don’t practice you don’t deserve to win. – Andre Agassi

80. When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again. – Hugo L. Black

#79 – 70. Tennis Quotes

79. The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall. – Mitch Hedberg

78. True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. – Arthur Ashe

77. As tennis players, we work and we sacrifice many things. To lose, that’s not a happy thing – I mean sure, I was disappointed. You have to come back strong. But to win the last point in a grand slam tournament, that’s the most beautiful and most satisfying feeling you can get as a tennis player. It’s worth it. – Bjorn Borg

76. I can’t become satisfied, because if I get satisfied, I’ll be like, “Oh, I’ve won Wimbledon, I’ve won the U.S. Open. Now can I relax.” But now people are really going to be fighting to beat me. – Serena Williams

75. I think luck falls on not just the brave but also the ones who believe they belong there. – Novak Djokovic

74. The serve was invented so that the net could play. – Bill Cosby

73. The thing about tennis is if you stay off for two weeks, or just for three days, you can lose your rhythm quickly. So it’s just a question of constant diligence and vigilance. – Venus Williams

72. Just go out there and do what you have to do. – Martina Navratilova

71. I fear no one but respect everyone. – Roger Federer

70. You have to find it. No one else can find it for you. – Bjorn Borg

#69 – 60. Tennis Quotes

69. Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. – Robert Frost

68. I never look back, I look forward. – Steffi Graf

67. Everything comes at a cost. Just what are you willing to pay for it? – Serena Williams

66. I am here to play women’s tennis. I’m a lady. Predominantly, most of the time I always like to play ladies. – Serena Williams

65. Spectacular performances are preceded by spectacular preparation. – Frank Giampaolo

64. I’m not the best player in the history of tennis. I think I’m amongst the best. That’s true. That’s enough for me. – Rafael Nadal

63. Being honest, in these kinds of matches, I won a lot of times against him. Today he beat me, and I just congratulate him. – Rafael Nadal

62. You’ll hear a lot of applause in your life, but none will mean more to you than that applause from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end. – Andre Agassi

61. The great part about tennis is you can’t run out the clock…. As long as we were still playing, I had a chance. – Andre Agassi

60. It’s one-on-one out there, man. There ain’t no hiding. I can’t pass the ball. – Yannick Noah

#59 – 50. Tennis Quotes

59. Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you’re too damned old to do anything about it. – Jimmy Connors

58. What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose. – Andre Agassi

57. Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. – Arthur Ashe

56. You’ve got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing. – Arthur Ashe

55. I am the best tennis player who cannot play tennis. – Ion Tiriac

54. Losing is not my enemy, fear of losing is my enemy. – Rafael Nadal

53. I hope to see you next year. If not, this was a wonderful run here, and I can’t be more happy to have won here tonight. – Rafael Nadal

52. I want my tennis to speak for everything. – Maria Sharapova

51. Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. – Arthur Ashe

50. Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost. – Martina Navratilova

#49 – 40. Tennis Quotes

49. I made it look so easy on court all those years. No one realized how hard I had to work. No one realized how much I had to put into it. They underestimated my intensity. – Pete Sampras

48. Whatever way you look at it, tennis just isn’t gentile and that’s part of the reason we love it. – Richard Evans

47. I’m a perfectionist. I’m pretty much insatiable. I feel there’s so many things I can improve on. – Serena Williams

46. 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. – Pete Sampras

45. If you’re a champion, you have to have it in your heart. – Chris Evert

44. Freed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic. – Andre Agassi

43. If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that’s concentration. – Serena Williams

42. If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that’s a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you for the rest of your life, and there’s going to be a life after tennis that’s a lot longer than your tennis life. – Chris Evert

41. Being number two sucks. – Andre Agassi

40. My motto is: I’m alive, so that means I can do anything. – Venus Williams

#39 – 30. Tennis Quotes

39. Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day. But I was completely committed to working out to prove to myself that I still could do it. – Andre Agassi

38. In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach. – Andy Murray

37. Every time you step out on court, you experience the emotions of life, but it’s like they’ve been concentrated to create a storm in a teacup. – Andre Agassi

36. The primary conception of tennis is to get the ball over the net and at the same time to keep it within bounds of the court; failing this, within the borders of the neighborhood. – Elliot Chaze

35. The ball is round, the game is long. – Bjorn Borg

34. I have always considered tennis as a combat in an arena between two gladiators who have their racquets and their courage as their weapons. – Richard Evans

33. What is the single most important quality in a tennis champion? I would have to say desire, staying in there and winning matches when you are not playing that well. – John McEnroe

32. A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.- Billie Jean King

31. But that won’t give me a free hand to hold the beer. – Billy Carter

30. I’ve been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience. – Maria Sharapova

#29 – 20. Tennis Quotes

29. You have to believe in the long term plan you have but you need the short term goals to motivate and inspire you. – Roger Federer

28. There’s too much money and too many nice guys around. – John McEnroe

27. Tennis is mostly mental. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.- Venus Williams

26. He did not surprise me. He was playing aggressively, and I understand that in a match against me. I don’t think it would have been intelligent to try to get into too many long rallies from the baseline. I don’t think he would have won. He went for it, and it was the right thing for him to do. – Rafael Nadal

25. We love this idea that tennis is out there conning people into thinking it’s a gentile sport when in reality it’s so brutal. – Richard Evans

24. Champions keep playing until they get it right. – Billie Jean King

23. I just try to stay positive and focused on the tennis, not let anything get to me, like crazy questions. But I’m tough, let me tell you, tough as nails. – Venus Williams

22. If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that’s a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there’s going to be a life after tennis that’s a lot longer than your tennis life. – Chris Evert

21. Is only a tennis match. At the end, that’s life. There is much more important things. – Rafael Nadal

20. The tennis ball doesn’t know how old I am. The ball doesn’t know if I’m a man or a woman or if I come from a communist country or not. Sport has always broken down these barriers. – Martina Navratilova

#19 – 10. Tennis Quotes

19. It sounds like hyperbole, but you really can experience life through a game of tennis, and you can’t help but love it for this, even if it’s one of the reasons you also might hate it. – Andre Agassi

18. What a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be “sorry” and admiration of each other’s play crosses the net as frequently as the ball. – J.M. Barrie

17. The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are at their worst. – Martina Navratilova

16. When you start from nothing, when you come from nothing, it makes you hungry. I am proud of where I came from and I know what I want. I want to win.- Maria Sharapova

15. Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed, but then I wouldn’t have been the same player. – Steffi Graf

14. Tennis has given me soul. – Martina Navratilova

13. Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.- Jacques Barzun

12. Good shot, bad luck, and hell are the five basic words to be used in a game of tennis, though these, of course, can be slightly amplified. – Virginia Graham

11. You can go out on the court and express yourself in a way that few people manage to do in life. – Andre Agassi

10. Tennis is a hard sport. There is a lot of competition all year and you play alone. – Rafael Nadal

#9 – 1. Tennis Quotes

9. It is very important not to think about losing. – Venus Williams

8. I hate to lose more than I love to win. – Jimmy Connors

7. I’m only superstitious on the tennis court. – Rafael Nadal

6. I want to reach absolute perfection. And I think I can reach it. – Steffi Graf

5. Tennis is a tough sport – there are no draws. But if there was one, I would have been happy to accept a draw with Rafa tonight, really. – Roger Federer

4. I just try to play tennis and don’t find excuses. You know, I just lost because I lost, not because my arm was sore. – Goran Ivanišević

3. I’m not afraid of anyone, but sometimes I’m afraid of myself. – Justine Henin

2. Tennis is not a gentle game. Psychologically, it is vicious. That people are only just beginning to come to terms with this fact illustrates just how big a con trick has been perpetrated on the non-playing tennis public – and even a few players, usually losing players – for decades. – Richard Evans

1. Most players who play tennis love the game. But I think you also have to respect it. You want to do everything you can in your power to do your best. And for me, I know I get insane guilt if I go home at the end of the day and don’t feel I’ve done everything I can. If I know I could have done something better, I have this uneasy feeling. – Andy Roddick

Ideas for the top 92 tennis quotes come from the following sources.^[1]Sports Feel Good Stories – Tennis Quote^[2]thetennisbros – THE BEST TENNIS QUOTE OF ALL TIME^[3]Quotabulary – 84 Best Tennis Quote of All Time