John McEnroe Quotes
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The mistake, if I made one, in the late 1980s, was thinking I needed to change my game.
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The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose. Life is a learning process and you have to try to learn what's best for you. Let me tell you, life is not fun when you're banging your head against a brick wall all the time.
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I don't really know why I started playing as a kid, but I grew up in Queens, New York, not too far from Forest Hills, where they played the U.S. Open in those days. I even got to be a ball boy there. Also, there was a tennis court just a block away from our house, and I'd hang out down there.
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I don't take myself as seriously as I did when I was playing, and it works, and I think people see the self-deprecation in my commentary.
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I didn't get along with most of the players I played against, but the one guy I did get along with was my greatest rival, so it can be done.
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There was a line call that didn't look so great. I went ballistic. Called the umpire a jerk. Whacked a ball into the stands. Then smacked a soda can with my racket, and got soda all over the King of Sweden, who was sitting in the front row.
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I like John McCain, or he seems like a cool guy in a lot of ways. I don't agree with a lot of his policies, but he still seems like a cool guy.
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You are the pits of the world! Vultures! Trash!
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I was a Yankee fan until 1981. That was the year the Yankees were two up on the Dodgers and lost four straight. And George Steinbrenner apologized to the city.
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I'm 56 years old. I like to get out on the court. I continue to try to play the best I can. Obviously, I'm nowhere near where I was when half this age. But I can still hit a pretty decent ball.
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I think it's the mark of a great player to be confident in tough situations.
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I just remember watching Federer the first year he won Wimbledon. He was struggling with his back problem. I remember it vividly. It looked like there was a chance he was not going to finish. He had that look in his eye. Then, somehow, he found the wherewithal to dig a little deeper, and suddenly he wins the thing, and he's a different player.
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I don't think enough players channel the energy of the crowd. If it's done properly, and you don't let anger overwhelm and distract you, it's like a shot of adrenaline in the arm, and it gets the crowd pumped up.
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But these guys learn so fast now, they sort of soak up the information, they're fearless. Those are the guys who learn from their mistakes and come back strong the next time.
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I always got along with Borg, who was my greatest rival. People like to see me and Connors, me and Lendl, go at it. We didn't like each other.
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I didn't serve and volley until I got to Wimbledon in '77.
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I did a terrible job of composing myself. I was a spoiled brat from Long Island who benefitted from the energy of New York.
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Nadal and Roger Federer have great respect for each other. I think Novak Djokovic gets under those two guys' skin a little bit, and maybe they don't want to admit it, and I think that's, in a way, healthy.
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I'd like to be the commissioner of tennis, but do I want to get into politics? Sometimes I have delusions of grandeur that that would be an interesting, good thing. I'm talking about actual politics, like being a congressman, but then I see how unbelievably nasty it really is, and maybe I'm not quite knowledgeable enough to actually do it.
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If you look at the top 100 players, you would see that the great majority of them have had at least a couple of surgeries. That tells me that we have to protect the players.
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It's ironic - people used to want to suspend me and talk about how bad my behaviour was, but now they like it when I shout and scream.
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This taught me a lesson, but I'm not quite sure what it is.
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Nick Kyrgios, if you don't want to be a professional tennis player, do something else.
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I had a similar year back in 1984 when I felt like I couldn't lose.