Quotes by Andre Agassi

“Being number two sucks.”

“Its shocking how little there is to do with tennis when youre just thinking about nothing except winning every point.”

“What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.”

“I think Ive always had the shots. But in the past, Ive suffered too many mental lapses. Now, Im starting to get away from that and my mental discipline and commitment to the game are much better. I think Im really taking a good look at the big picture. Thats the difference between being around for the final or watching the final from my sofa at home.”

“I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Petes baby. I just think genetics are in my favour.”

“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.”

“I feel old when I see mousse in my opponents hair.”

“It has meant a lot to me to challenge the best players in the world and to beat them. And it means a lot to me to be out here and fighting for the title and, you know, it hurts not to win it.”

“He was too good. I would suggest to his next opponent that he doesnt look to me for advice”

“My feelings are he [Yevgeny Kafelnikov] should take his prize money when he is done here and go and buy some perspective.”

“I’m not the next anyone, I’m the first Maria Sharapova”

Its no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and its all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. Its our choice.

Tennis is the loneliest sport

There are many ways of getting strong, sometimes talking is the best way.

I stand and feel an overpowering urge to forgive, because I realize that my father cant help himself, that he never could help himself, any more than he could understand himself.

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxers opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. Theyre inches away. In tennis youre on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement....

Frankies chief virtue in my book is the way he talks about his kids.

Older people make this mistake all the time with younger people, treating them as a finished product when in fact they are in process.

Control what you can control.

Given all that lies beyond mycontrol, I obsess about the few things I can control