What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.
I question myself every day. That's what I still find motivating about this. I don't have the answers, I don't pretend that I do just because I won the match. Just keep fighting and maybe something good happens.
You have to have the mentality of executing your game when you don't feel like there's a lot of hope. I think the best feeling is when somebody pushes you to the limit and you dig down a little bit extra. By the same token, you also need a little luck. Sometimes they come together.
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.
If I don't do what I need to do to win, I won't win, no matter who is on the other side of the net.
You don't cheat anybody out of their experience, whatever it is.
I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis.
When I was 7 years old I saw Jimmy Connors make someone carry his bag, as though he were Julius Caesar. I vowed then and there that I would always carry my own.
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.
I've been criticized for not having perspective in the past and I thought that of myself many times but not there.
It means a lot to you, to be out there. The highs are pretty high, and the lows are pretty low. You know, it's easy to feel like you let the team down. I mean, at the end of the day we still got to figure out a way to get through the tie.
Now that I've won a slam, I know something very few people on earth are permitted to know. A win doesn't feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn't last long as the bad. Not even close.
First of all, let me say, 1:15 in the morning, for 20,000 people to still be here, I wasn't the winner, tennis was. That's awesome. I don't know if I've ever felt so good here before.
Sometimes it's just harder to remind yourself about what you're doing and why you're doing it... Other times, you have a great desire for it, but physically you're not responding the way you want. That presents other challenges. Then sometimes it all comes together.
Tennis is the loneliest sport.
This sport has given me so much that my hope would be to give back as much as I can for as long as I can.
Tennis is one of the only sports in America where the sport doesn't grow with the size of the person - it just forces you to swallow the whole pill.
Tennis is a very objective sport in the sense that the scoreboard doesn't lie.
I'm going to go down swinging... I'm sure as heck not going to go home and say I had a bad tournament.
You know my dad pushed me to believe that I was going to be the best. I just never thought of life without tennis, even looking forward.
I had moments of my actions and words not reflecting who it is I am - if that defines a punk, then yes, absolutely.
Well, you know, I've bonded with a lot of people over the years, you know. We played the same tournaments year after year and we go back to the same place and many times the seats have been full and that has meant the world to me for sure.
But, I would say when I was four years old and I was at the Alan King Tennis Tournament and I was hitting with all the pros that would come to town. They would get me on the court or take notice and that stayed with me.
First of all, in any sport where you can measure distance, height speed and all of that, you see how athletes have changed their sport and made it better. I believe, with every generation, the sport has improved. Certainly, in the men's game, that has been the case. I think that I played Pete [Sampras] at his best, I played Roger [Federer] at his best.. I believe wholeheartedly that Roger and [Rafael] Nadal have pushed the game much further than myself or Pete ever did. Their options on the tennis court are considerably more than ours.
Well, I actually tell my son that I don't have any hair because he asked me the same question that I gave it to him when he was born, so he actually still believes that. He's five years old.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: