The 50 Most Inspirational Tennis Quotes of All Time (2024)

I have two lives, and all the problems I might have, I feel like I drop them once I step on to the match court.

Roger Federer

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

Yannick Noah

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

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.

Mitch Hedberg

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

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

Pete Sampras

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

John McEnroe

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

Martina Navratilova

Success is walking out of here with the title, and anything less is not good enough in my book.

Pete Sampras

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

I never wanted to be the great guy or the colorful guy or the interesting guy. I wanted to be the guy who won titles.

Pete Sampras

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

Martina Navratilova

I hate to lose more than I love to win.

Jimmy Connors

You don't have to hate your opponents to beat them.

Kim Clijsters

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

Billie Jean King

I’ve always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute. It scares you a bit, but that’s the way things are.

Roger Federer

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

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

I play each point like my life depends on it.

Rafael Nadal

Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.

Arthur Ashe

There is no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there’s always something which you can improve.

Roger Federer

Being number two sucks.

Andre Agassi

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.

Stan Wawrinka

Nobody beats Vitus Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.

Vitus Gerulaitis

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

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.

Arthur Ashe

Losing is not my enemy, fear of losing is my enemy.

Rafael Nadal

I've grown most not from victories, but setbacks. If winning is God's reward, then losing is how He teaches us.

Serena Williams

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

The next point - that's all you must think about.

Rod Laver

I didn't have the same fitness or ability as the other girls, so I had to beat them with my mind.

Martina Hingis

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.

Rudyard Kipling

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.

Billie Jean King

I fear no one but respect everyone.

Roger Federer

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

Arthur Ashe

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

Rafael Nadal

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

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

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

I’m not afraid of anyone, but sometimes I’m afraid of myself.

Justine Henin

What rivalry? I win all the matches.

Martina Hingis

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

Tennis is a mental game. Everyone is fit, everyone hits great forehands and backhands.

Novak Djokovic

There is a syndrome in sports called paralysis by analysis. The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.

Arthur Ashe

You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, 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

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

Steffi Graf

I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.

Boris Becker

I'm not the next anyone, I'm the first Maria Sharapova.

Maria Sharapova

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

There's no right way, there's no wrong way, there's just my way.

Ashleigh Barty