John McEnroe Quotes
- All Quotes
-
One of the things I respected about Connors was that one second he would be spewing a four-letter word, the next second he would do something that had people falling off the aisles. Yet he never seemed to lose his concentration.
-
They would go back and listen to my matches, and two days later, I'd be fined. Because no one heard it while it was being played, but they heard it on some mic behind the court. Is that the way it should be? I don't think so.
-
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.
-
I used to take pride if my kids were playing basketball, and I'd be there, and I wouldn't say anything. People were obviously expecting me to yell and scream at the ref and at them and everything. I wouldn't say anything.
-
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.
-
Things slow down, the ball seems a lot bigger and you feel like you have more time. Everything computes - you have options, but you always take the right one.
-
I think it's the mark of a great player to be confident in tough situations.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I was always fighting the establishment, trying to run through brick walls.
-
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.
-
I like to be close to water and the ocean, particularly. I love to get out and body surf. I like mountain biking, too.
-
You are the pits of the world! Vultures! Trash!
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
It's only human nature to want to know what you can do on your own or with someone else.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Nick Kyrgios, if you don't want to be a professional tennis player, do something else.
-
I didn't serve and volley until I got to Wimbledon in '77.
-
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.
-
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.