I hope each of you hears that at the end. You’ll hear a lot of applause in your life, but none will mean more to you than that applause from your peers. Advantage, service, fault, break, love – the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic. As long as we were still playing, I had a chance.įreed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. The great part about tennis is you can’t run out the clock…. There is a lot of competition all year and you play alone. I’m only superstitious on the tennis court. Losing is not my enemy, fear of losing is my enemy. I’m not the best player in the history of tennis. You’ve got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. 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. To lose, that’s not a happy thing – I mean sure, I was disappointed. No one else can find it for you.Īs tennis players, we work and we sacrifice many things. Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility. Everyone else is afraid of winning.Ĭhampions keep playing until they get it right. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.Ī champion is afraid of losing. It is very important not to think about losing. But I’m tough, let me tell you, tough as nails. I just try to stay positive and focused on the tennis, not let anything get to me, like crazy questions. My motto is: I’m alive, so that means I can do anything. So it’s just a question of constant diligence and vigilance. The thing about tennis is if you stay off for two weeks, or just for three days, you can lose your rhythm quickly. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.
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Of course, you must have a lot of physical skill, but you can’t play tennis well and not be a good thinker. No one realized how much I had to put into it. I made it look so easy on court all those years. Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed, but then I wouldn’t have been the same player. If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that’s concentration. Predominantly, most of the time I always like to play ladies. I feel there’s so many things I can improve on. Now can I relax.” But now people are really going to be fighting to beat me.
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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. At the same time, if you’re a good athlete, it doesn’t mean you’re not a woman. You don’t have to be pretty for people to come and see you play.
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Just go out there and do what you have to do. Sport has always broken down these barriers. The ball doesn’t know if I’m a man or a woman or if I come from a communist country or not. The tennis ball doesn’t know how old I am. The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are at their worst. Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.
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I’d had a girlfriend or two and had liked them a lot but it wasn’t love, because my first love was tennis.