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" Look at Becker and Djokovic. If you look at Novak's record since Boris has been there, it's been phenomenal. "
John McEnroe
Look
Phenomenal
Since
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" To be involved in a senior tournament back in the States is very satisfying. "
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" I grew up watching Dr. J, and I was like, 'Oh my God, this guy is the greatest basketball player I ever saw.' "
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" I was always taught that you needed to be intense and never lose your focus. "
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" Why don't they go back to wood racquets? Then we would see the best tennis to be played. "
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" No other athlete in any sport has ever had to go through what I have to. "
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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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" No one cares about the Davis Cup. How many people know I won five Davis Cups and seven majors, but that I rarely played the Australian Open? "
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" Well I think that's probably one of a few, where I grew up in the City of New York, it's got a lot of energy, my parents are Irish-American so there was a bit of yelling going on in my house but it seemed normal. "
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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 used to get two racquets a year. As you can imagine, they didn't last me too long. "
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" I went to play in Brazil when I had just turned 18 and was the world's top junior player. I got to the airport, and no one knew who I was. I couldn't speak any Portuguese, and no one spoke English. Then someone said something that resembled 'tennis,' and I went with that. "
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" You hit a wall at some stage when you don't want it so bad, but you don't know when that's going to be - as far as competition or as far as health is concerned. Sometimes it's just natural. You just taste it, and you want it so bad that you find other gears. "
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Know
" I like to be close to water and the ocean, particularly. I love to get out and body surf. I like mountain biking, too. "
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Mountain
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" I can't speak for other people, but I still hate losing. When I did lose, I found it easier to yell than to cry. Guys aren't supposed to cry, are they? "
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Cry
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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 good part of having six kids is, there's always one who wants to hug you and say, 'Daddy, I love you.' "
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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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Look
Great
Sitting
" I think it's the mark of a great player to be confident in tough situations. "
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Tough
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" I can tell you from experience that when you get that pent-up and crazed, it can be distracting. "
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Experience
Get
I Can
" When I was eight and a half, my parents moved to a part of Queens where there was a club nearby. We joined, and if you believe in someone up above, I think I was meant to play tennis. "
John McEnroe
Club
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You
" 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. "
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Off
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" When I came on the tour, I thought, 'Why don't they treat tennis players the same way they look at football players?' Because I've got news for you: when they are on the pitch, they are not saying, 'Hello, how are you?' out there. "
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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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Bad
People
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" It's one thing if you live in London and you're rooting for Chelsea or you're in New York and you love the Giants or Jets and no matter who's on the team you're into it. It's different in tennis; you're sort of your own guy, so you have to reach out and grab a person in a different way. "
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" When I felt I was rejected by my first wife, and she said, 'Some day you will thank me for this,' you know what? I do. And so, sometimes it is darkest before the dawn. You can think it is bleak and you can't see. You never know. "
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Wife
You
Day
" It's only human nature to want to know what you can do on your own or with someone else. "
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Someone
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Human Nature
" I'm sure a lot of players say it, but winning is almost so you don't lose. The thrill of winning is not as great as the pain of losing. "
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You
Losing
Pain
" You have to keep persevering. An actor goes to a lot of auditions and doesn't get the part. "
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" We should reach out to people to try to go after the fans the way other sports do. Because we can't just depend on the fact that it is a great game. "
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