Winning Tennis Quotes

The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle, And some have been known to fall in it. In tennis it's nothing, but it can be received, And sometimes a person may win it. Though not seen or heard it may be perceived, Like princes or bees it's in clover. The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle, And without it one cannot start over.

I have no sense of humor about losing

We are the farmers of the future. If we desire all the gifts of God, if we seek to win the Golden Crown, we can't just sit back and watch. We have to make it happen.

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.

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard.

Except in a very few matches, usually with world-class performers, there is a point in every match (and in some cases it's right at the beginning) when the loser decides he's going to lose. And after that, everything he does will be aimed at providing an explanation of why he will have lost. He may throw himself at the ball (so he will be able to say he's done his best against a superior opponent). He may dispute calls (so he will be able to say he's been robbed). He may swear at himself and throw his racket (so he can say it was apparent all along he wasn't in top form). His energies go not into winning but into producing an explanation, an excuse, a justification for losing.

What matters isn't how well you play when you're playing well. What mattersis how well you play when you're playing badly.' - Martina Navratilova

Bowe looks at me and closes his eyes slowly. He takes a breath. “You act like you’ve dedicated your life to tennis. But you came back to win, not to play. That’s why they’re all pissed at you for returning. You’ve got no heart.

Their hands slapped library door handles together, their chests broke track tapes together, their tennis shoes beat parallel pony tracks over lawns, trimmed bushes, squirreled trees, no one losing, both winning, thus saving their friendship for other times of loss.

Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself.

Life is life tennis: Those who serve best usually win.

How much discipline? In January 2012, I beat Nadal in the finals of the Australian Open. The match lasted five hours and fifty-three minutes—the longest match in Australian Open history, and the longest Grand Slam singles final in the Open Era. Many commentators have called that match the single greatest tennis match of all time. After I won, I sat in the locker room in Melbourne. I wanted one thing: to taste chocolate. I hadn’t tasted it since the summer of 2010. Miljan brought me a candy bar. I broke off one square—one tiny square—and popped it into my mouth, let it melt on my tongue. That was all I would allow myself. That is what it has taken to get to number one.

Hornergy' is Zen's term for the indomitable athletic edge powered by sexual restraint. The basketball, baseball and football teams haven't had a winning season in years. The table-tennis team, however, is undefeated.

And then also, again, still, what are those boundaries, if they’re not baselines, that contain and direct its infinite expansion inward, that make tennis like chess on the run, beautiful and infinitely dense? The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise… You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again…Mario thinks hard again. He’s trying to think of how to articulate something like: But then is battling and vanquishing the self the same as destroying yourself? Is that like saying life is pro-death? … And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?

Freed from thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, stop feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic.

Fencing is different to sport like Tennis or Volleyball. In those sport, if scores are tied before the final point, it's called "Deuce". Which means "Two" because a player must be two points ahead to win... to compensate for the advantage of serving. But in fencing, there is no Deuce. Because there's no advantage. Both fencers start off equally. Equal footing. Equal opportunity. What separates them is just skill and the psychology of the match. The difference between winning and losing is just one point

It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do. The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?

If feelings are left out of it, both sides can get more and more heated as they play what I call “fact tennis,” lobbing reasons over the net to each other, finding more and more to hit the other person with. In this style of arguing, the aim of the conflict becomes to win points rather than find a workable solution. Finding out about differences and working through them is about understanding and compromise, not about winning.

Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his comrades to arms he would turn aside for the drum of a troop of jugglers; that he would actually find it no more delightful and pleasant to return victorious covered in the dust of battle than after winning a prize for tennis or dancing; then I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking or apprentice him to make fairy-cakes in some goodly town - even if he were the heir of a Duke - following Plato's precept that functions should be allocated not according to the endowments of men's fathers but the endowments of their souls.

The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again.

I go to New York City, the Tournament of Champions, a significant milestone because it’s a clash of the top players in the world. Once more I square off against Chang, who’s developed a bad habit since we last met. Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God—credits God—for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke.

Bowe leans forward on the table and moves his drink out of the way. “This guy, the Inner Game of Tennis guy, he talks about two selves. Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1 says, ‘C’mon, Huntley! Get it together!’ Self 2 is the Huntley who’s supposed to be doing the getting it together.” I say, “I get you so far.” “Self 2 is doing all the work, right? Self 2 is going to win you the game. Self 2 is the hero. Self 1 just yells and gets frustrated and gets in the way.

Sport, on the other hand, is straightforward. In badminton, if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball, if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis, if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first or second rallies you’ve won in that game, or 10 for the third, with an indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two 10-point (or 15-point) segments clear of his opponent. It’s clear and simple.

Archie Henderson has won no awards, written no books and never played any representative sport. He was an under-11 tournament-winning tennis player as a boy, but left the game when he discovered rugby where he was one of the worst flyhalves he can remember. This did not prevent him from having opinions on most things in sport. His moment of glory came in 1970 when he predicted—correctly as it turned out—that Griquas would beat the Blue Bulls (then still the meekly named Noord-Transvaal) in the Currie Cup final. It is something for which he has never been forgiven by the powers-that-be at Loftus. Archie has played cricket in South Africa and India and gave the bowling term military medium a new and more pacifist interpretation. His greatest ambition was to score a century on Llandudno beach before the tide came in.

Ukrainian boxer Vasyl Lomachenko set a record for the fewest fights needed to win world titles in three different weight classes. Lomachenko, who took four years off boxing as a kid to learn traditional Ukrainian dance, reflected, “I was doing so many different sports as a young boy—gymnastics, basketball, football, tennis—and I think, ultimately, everything came together with all those different kinds of sports to enhance my footwork.

The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard. He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing.

Martians have a win/lose philosophy—I want to win, and I don’t care if you lose. As long as each Martian took care of himself this formula worked fine. It worked for centuries, but now it needed to be changed. Giving primarily to themselves was no longer as satisfying. Being in love, they wanted the Venusians to win as much as themselves. In most sports today we can see an extension of this Martian competitive code. For example, in tennis I not only want to win but also try to make my friend lose by making it difficult for him to return my shots. I enjoy winning even though my friend loses. Most of these Martian attitudes have a place in life, but this win/lose attitude becomes harmful in our adult relationships. If I seek to fulfill my own needs at the expense of my partner, we are sure to experience unhappiness, resentment, and conflict. The secret of forming a successful relationship is for both partners to win.

Golf is not as much fun without a scorecard. Tennis doesn’t work as well without it. Same for other sports. Somehow, though, we muddle through life without a scorecard, one that’s focused on character strengths, even though most people, if they reflected on it, would agree that in the game of life, these are what truly matter most.

Were he now still among the living, Dr. Incandenza would now describe tennis in the paradoxical terms of what’s now called ‘Extra-Linear Dynamics.’ And Schtitt, whose knowledge of formal math is probably about equivalent to that of a Taiwanese kindergartner, nevertheless seemed to know what Hopman and van der Meer and Bollettieri seemed not to know: that locating beauty and art and magic and improvement and keys to excellence and victory in the prolix flux of match play is not a fractal matter of reducing chaos to a pattern. Seemed intuitively to sense that it was a matter not of reduction at all, but — perversely — of expansion, the aleatory flutter of uncontrolled, metastatic growth — each well-shot ball admitting of n possible responses, n² responses to those responses, and on into what Incandenza would articulate to anyone who shared both his backgrounds as a Cantorian continuum of infinities of possible move and response, Cantorian and beautiful because infoliating, contained, this diagnate infinity of infinities of choice and execution, mathematically uncontrolled but humanly contained, bounded by the talent and imagination of self and opponent, bent in on itself by the containing boundaries of skill and imagination that brought one player finally down, that kept both from winning, that made it, finally, a game, these boundaries of self.

Winning a tennis match is a bit like receiving religious faith. You can't get there by work alone. You need grace, and you can't ever take it for granted.

Life is like tennis. Those who serve best usually win.

He wanted to live now, to win at tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sun — in the sun which had begun to decline and was shining in her eyes; and he did win.

In any game, the game itself is the prize, no matter who wins, ultimately both lose the game.

I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain. An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a "quarter-metre square." That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven't seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist's poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don't know, but I'm on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field.

Competition then becomes an interesting device in which each player, by making his maximum effort to win, gives the other the opportunity he desires to reach new levels of self-awareness.

[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] “When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don’t grow cold and cramp yourself, I hardly think you’d concern yourself with his burgeoning manhood, let alone his thighs!

There are two people in a tennis match. One ends up winning, one ends up losing. And I think the pleasure comes not from winning. I think the pleasure comes from beating someone.” She scrunched up her face like a very puzzled child. “Why is that something we admire? We call them winners, but when you think about it, they really get off on making someone else lose. Why is that something we admire so much?” “That’s

Asian woman to ever win Wimbledon. The first woman like me to do almost any of the things I’ve done in tennis—hitting these records. Because we both know tennis doesn’t make it easy for those of us who aren’t blond and blue-eyed.

(If the bad tennis player hits very hard, not because he sees that a very hard stroke is required, but because he has lost his temper, his stroke might possibly, by luck, help him to win that particular game; but it will not be helping him to become a reliable player.)

some seem to get trapped in the compulsion to succeed, others take a rebellious stance. Pointing to the blatant cruelties and limitations involved in a cultural pattern which tends to value only the winner and ignore even the positive qualities of the mediocre, they vehemently criticize competition. Among the most vocal are youth who have suffered under competitive pressures imposed on them by parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by making no effort to win

Never take it for granted because soon enough it will be taken away. Time is tough. Every time you go out on the court be thankful. Be grateful. Believe me, I am. If you are lucky enough to be a tennis player you should recognize that it’s a privilege to be able to walk out on that court and play the game.

Were you serious when you said I might win someday at Wimbledon?" Claire answered, "There's so much that's pure luck, good or bad. The weather can be terrible. We always say we should re-schedule Wimbledon and hold it in the summer!" I frowned. "Wimbledon is in the summer." Claire sighed. "It's a joke, Fiona." "Oh.

Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory itself.

Only then does he have the chance to go beyond the limitations inherent in the various ego trips of Self 1 and to reach a new awareness of his true potential. Competition then becomes an interesting device in which each player, by making his maximum effort to win, gives the other the opportunity he desires to reach new levels of self-awareness.

Tennis has a Dip. The difference between a mediocre club player and a regional champion isn’t inborn talent—it’s the ability to push through the moments where it’s just easier to quit. Politics has a Dip as well—it’s way more fun to win an election than to lose one, and the entire process is built around many people starting while most people quit.

Nicki keeps her eyes focused entirely on watching the trainer wrap her foot. But her next words are aimed squarely at me. “I don’t think you’ve ever understood what I can do. What I am doing.” “I do,” I say. “I see it.” “I am better than you,” she says. “Give me a break, Nicki.” “You think that if this was 1982, I wouldn’t stand a chance against you,” Nicki continues. “I know that if this was 1982, you wouldn’t stand a chance against me,” I say. “Because it’s 1995, and you don’t stand a chance against me.” Nicki scoffs. “You just can’t see it.” “How good you are?” I say. “I see how good you are.” “You don’t respect what I’ve done for tennis the way I respect what you’ve done.” “What have you done that I haven’t done?” Nicki turns and looks at me. Her gaze is heavy. “I’m the first Asian woman to ever win Wimbledon. The first woman like me to do almost any of the things I’ve done in tennis—hitting these records. Because we both know tennis doesn’t make it easy for those of us who aren’t blond and blue-eyed.” “Yes,” I say, nodding. “Absolutely.

He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing.

Jeremy Bentham startled the world many years ago by stating in effect that if the amount of pleasure obtained from each be equal there is nothing to choose between poetry and push-pin. Since few people now know what push-pin is, I may explain that it is a child's game in which one player tries to push his pin across that of another player, and if he succeeds and then is able by pressing down on the two pins with the ball of his thumb to lift them off the table he wins possession of his opponent's pin. [...] The indignant retort to Bentham's statement was that spiritual pleasures are obviously higher than physical pleasures. But who say so? Those who prefer spiritual pleasures. They are in a miserable minority, as they acknowledge when they declare that the gift of aesthetic appreciation is a very rare one. The vast majority of men are, as we know, both by necessity and choice preoccupied with material considerations. Their pleasures are material. They look askance at those who spent their lives in the pursuit of art. That is why they have attached a depreciatory sense to the word aesthete, which means merely one who has a special appreciation of beauty. How are we going to show that they are wrong? How are we going to show that there is something to choose between poetry and push-pin? I surmise that Bentham chose push-pin for its pleasant alliteration with poetry. Let us speak of lawn tennis. It is a popular game which many of us can play with pleasure. It needs skill and judgement, a good eye and a cool head. If I get the same amount of pleasure out of playing it as you get by looking at Titian's 'Entombment of Christ' in the Louvre, by listening to Beethoven's 'Eroica' or by reading Eliot's 'Ash Wednesday', how are you going to prove that your pleasure is better and more refined than mine? Only, I should say, by manifesting that this gift you have of aesthetic appreciation has a moral effect on your character.

He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing. There

As a Stoic novice, you will want, as part of becoming proficient in applying the trichotomy of control, to practice internalizing your goals. Instead of having winning a tennis match as your goal, for example, make it your goal to prepare for the match as best you can and to try your hardest in the match. By routinely internalizing your goals, you can reduce (but probably not eliminate) what would otherwise be a significant source of distress in your life: the feeling that you have failed to accomplish some goal.

Tennis is not a game. It's a sport and a puzzle, an endurance test. You do whatever you can to win. it has been my enemy and my friend, my nightmare and the solace to that nightmare, my wound and the salve for my wound. Ask anyone who has made a life in this game, who has been out on the clay before they were old enough to understand the consequences of a strange early talent. I know you want us to love this game —us loving it makes it more fun to watch. But we don't love it. And we don't hate it. It just is, and always has been.

At some point toward the end of the 2016 Australian Open, a nurse asked me to pee in a cup. There was nothing unusual about this—it’s just another part of the procedure, performed by the ITF, the International Tennis Federation, to drug-test athletes and keep the sport clean. I was twenty-eight years old. I’d been peeing in those cups for more than a decade, and I forgot all about the test the moment after it happened, my mind quickly returning to the matter at hand: the next leg of the tour, the next match I’d have to win to get where I still needed to go.

The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions.

Be like gravity, man, just like motherfucking gravity. When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. You’re making everyone around you miserable. You’re making yourself miserable. Perfection? There’s about five times a year you wake up perfect, when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It’s the other times. It’s all about your head, man. With your talent, if you’re fifty percent game-wise, but ninety-five percent head-wise, you’re going to win. But if you’re ninety-five percent game-wise and fifty percent head-wise, you’re going to lose, lose, lose.

Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise… You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again…Mario thinks hard again. He’s trying to think of how to articulate something like: But then is battling and vanquishing the self the same as destroying yourself? Is that like saying life is pro-death? … And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?

I might beat her today. If that ball is in and she misses it, I can beat her today. But that will not change the fact that she is incomparable. And she will win another Slam in ’96. And then probably another, if she goes easier on her ankle. And what am I going to do? Keep coming back to try to take it from her? Keep holding on for dear life to what I should have let go of long ago? Is that what I want my life to be? Trying to deny what Nicki Chan is? Where is the beauty in that? My shot arches toward her, over the net. Nicki’s running deep. The ball goes past her. She’s not going to get it. I can feel myself winning this thing and then letting go of it all. Letting her take the rest from here on out. I am ready for that. I am ready to give it to her. To let her have it. Finally. But as I watch, the ball lands one centimeter past the baseline. The linesman calls it out. I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. Nicki screams into the sky, both arms outstretched. The crowd is up on their feet, cheering. I just lost the tiebreak. I just lost the match. I can barely catch my breath. I don’t slam down my racket. I don’t scream. I don’t bury my face in my hands. I just look at Bowe. Nicki Chan has won the US Open. I lost. The match and my record, twice in one year. I wait for the skies to open up and shame to rain down on me. I wait for my belly to split in half. For the grief to overtake me. But…it doesn’t come. Bowe is smiling. And Gwen has her arms out, waiting to give me a hug. Ali is clapping wildly, even though I lost. And the thing I don’t understand is that I still feel that hum. That hum in my bones. That sense of weightlessness and groundedness. That sense that the day is mine. That I can do anything. Nicki Chan looks at me. And I smile at her. I am no longer the greatest tennis player in the world. For the first time in my life, I can be…something else.

What little I knew of Marco outside of our time together mystified me. He got Cs in school and didn’t play a single sport. His mother and father never kept track of where he was. All he did was play guitar and try to get his band together in his garage to practice. I could barely imagine his world, and yet I could not stop trying. I liked the way he talked a lot but never said much. That he never took anything seriously. That nothing ever felt like a big deal. Sometimes, I pictured being with him outside that car. I pictured me sitting across the table from him at a restaurant and having him reach his hand out for mine. For other people to see that he chose me. “I’m just saying, if we wanted to, we could figure it out,” I said. “It’s not like you even have time to go to a party with me or do anything I want to do. You’re obsessed with tennis.” “I’m not obsessed with anything,” I said. “I’m dedicated to winning. And I work hard at that.” “Right,” Marco said. “And so let’s just keep doing what we’re doing.” I did not like his answer, but the next afternoon, I met him right back in that car with a smile on my face. Maybe Marco and I would never go out to dinner. Maybe I was not the sort of girl who became a girlfriend at all. Maybe I was the type of girl you kissed when no one was looking and that was it. If that was the case, then fine. I would not demean myself enough to want more. But that did not mean I could not have the rest, that my body did not deserve what he could give it.

There is one further point about the virtues that ought to be noticed. There is a difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and being a just or temperate man. Someone who is not a good tennis player may now and then make a good shot. What you mean by a good player is the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on. They have a certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing, just as a mathematician's mind has a certain habit and outlook which is there even when he is not doing mathematics. In the same way a man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of 'virtue.' This distinction is important for the following reason. If we thought only of the particular actions we might encourage three wrong ideas. (1) We might think that, provided you did the right thing, it did not matter how or why you did it—whether you did it willingly or unwillingly, sulkily or cheerfully, through fear of public opinion or or its own sake. But the truth is that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a 'virtue,' and it is this quality or character that really matters. (If the bad tennis player hits very hard, not because he sees that a very hard stroke is required, but because he has lost his temper, his stroke might possibly, by luck, help him to win that particular game; but it will not be helping him to become a reliable player.)

The cultural code of the stiff upper lip is not for her boys. She is teaching them that it is not “sissy” to show their feelings to others. When she took Prince William to watch the German tennis star Steffi Graff win the women’s singles final at Wimbledon last year they left the royal box to go backstage and congratulate her on her victory. As Graff walked off court down the dimly lit corridor to the dressing room, royal mother and son thought Steffi looked so alone and vulnerable out of the spotlight. So first Diana, then William gave her a kiss and an affectionate hug. The way the Princess introduced her boys to her dying friend, Adrian Ward-Jackson, was a practical lesson in seeing the reality of life and death. When Diana told her eldest son that Adrian had died, his instinctive response revealed his maturity. “Now he’s out of pain at last and really happy.” At the same time the Princess is acutely aware of the added burdens of rearing two boys who are popularly known as “the heir and the spare.” Self-discipline is part of the training. Every night at six o’clock the boys sit down and write thank-you notes or letters to friends and family. It is a discipline which Diana’s father instilled in her, so much so that if she returns from a dinner party at midnight she will not sleep easily unless she has penned a letter of thanks. William and Harry, now ten and nearly eight respectively, are now aware of their destiny. On one occasion the boys were discussing their futures with Diana. “When I grow up I want to be a policeman and look after you mummy,” said William lovingly. Quick as a flash Harry replied, with a note of triumph in his voice, “Oh no you can’t, you’ve got to be king.

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Good tennis players are those who beat other tennis players, and a good shot during play is one the opponent can't return. But that's not a truth about life or excellence -- it's a truth about tennis. We've created an artificial structure in which one person can't succeed without doing so at someone else's expense, and then we accuse anyone who prefers other kinds of activities of being naive because "there can be only one best -- you're it or you're not," as the teacher who delivered that much-admired you're-not-special commencement speech declared. You see the sleight of hand here? The question isn't whether everyone playing a competitive game can win or whether every student can be above average. Of course they can't. The question that we're discouraged from asking is why our games are competitive -- or our students are compulsively ranked against one another -- in the first place.

Creativity is to ads as product quality is to cars, airplanes and electronic equipment – it’s absolutely necessary, and it needs to be built-in to the product, but it is not the only factor that matters, and it hardly provides sustainable differentiation from one agency to another. True, one agency will be “hot” for a given period and will grow and win business (one thinks of Crispin Porter + Bogusky or mcgarrybowen in recent years), but then the wheel turns, and the hot creative agencies of today become targets for other upstarts – like Droga5, 72andSunny, or Anomaly – and are eventually superseded in the same way that professional tennis stars are eventually vanquished at Wimbledon.

Nothing brings a warm smile to my face and does my heart more good than when a club player or pro walks up to me at a tournament

Now, let’s focus on one aspect of another female superstar’s greatness that you should bring into your game, or rather into your head; Serena Williams (and Venus too) have serious short-term memory loss. By that I mean when things go bad in a point, game, set, or match, they have this ability to mentally wipe the slate clean—to forget about it immediately and not get ruined. Club players? We miss a few shots and lose a couple of games and it gets in our mind; we lose confidence, get rattled, and dial it down. Believe me, I know. That was me on tour plenty of times. As you’ll read later in Winning Ugly, when you get down on yourself—start beating yourself up mentally—there are now two players on the court trying to take you down. And one of them is you.

Upon hearing this, you might think that he became a psychologist due to careful planning. But in fact, he stumbled into his career while pursuing his love of tennis.

In 2013, British tennis player Andy Murray was lauded across the media for ending Britain’s ‘77-year wait’ to win Wimbledon, when in fact Virginia Wade had won it in 1977. Three years later, Murray was informed by a sports reporter that he was ‘the first person ever to win two Olympic tennis gold medals’ (Murray correctly replied that ‘Venus and Serena have won about four each’).61 In the US it is a truth universally acknowledged that its soccer team has never won the World Cup or even reached the final – except it has. Its women’s team has won three times.

Life is a tennis match between polar opposites. Winning and losing, love and hate, open and closed. It helps to recognize that painful fact early. Then recognize the polar opposites within yourself, and if you can’t embrace them, or reconcile them, at least accept them and move on.

If only I could play soccer instead of tennis. I don’t like sports, but if I must play a sport to please my father, I’d much rather play soccer. I get to play three times a week at school, and I love running the soccer field with the wind in my hair, calling for the ball, knowing the world won’t end if I don’t score. The fate of my father, of my family, of planet earth, doesn’t rest on my shoulders. If my team doesn’t win, it will be the whole team’s fault, and no one will yell in my ear. Team sports, I decide, are the way to go.

hate to lose more than I love to win,’ said US tennis star Jimmy Connors.

Going into a game of tennis: If you go in determined to win, and then your opponent is playing better than you, you're probably going to get anxious and feel that you're failing. Whereas if you go in determined to play as well as you can, then it doesn't matter if your opponent is a bit better than you or if they start to win: you're not failing.

What is the real game? It is a game in which the heart is entertained, the game in which you are entertained. It is the game you will win. - Maharaji

Most good doubles players serve down the middle at least 80 percent of the time. If both you and your partner are right-handed, consider putting the stronger backhand service return, and/or backhand volley, in the deuce (right) court and the stronger forehand service return, and/or forehand volley, in the ad (left) court.

I would, however, add some ideas and that’s what this brand new and

Esperanza sat back and looked at him for several beats. “Do you remember when Suzze won the US Open?” “Of course. What does that have to do with anything?” “She’d cleaned up her act. She focused solely on her tennis, and bam, right away, Suzze wins a major. I never saw someone want something so badly. I can still see that final cross-court forehand to win, the look of pure undiluted joy on her face, the way she threw her racket up in the air and turned and pointed at you.” “At

McEnroe, Connors, Becker, Evert, Navratilova, Lendl, Borg,

Old-time tennis fans like to say the 1980s produced the greatest cast of characters and performers in tennis—McEnroe,

That first game of the fifth set goes deuce and several times.

Movement” means great footwork coupled with quick speed, balance, dexterity,

First up:

Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis--Lessons from a Master (Gilbert, Brad;Jamison, Steve) - Your Highlight on Location 203-206 | Added on Wednesday, April 22, 2015 10:51:21 AM In tennis and in life when you do something you love, appreciate it and respect it by giving it all you can. Never take it for granted because soon enough it will be taken away. Time is tough. Every time you go out on the court be thankful. Be grateful. Believe me, I am. If you are lucky enough to be a tennis player you should recognize that it’s a privilege to be able to walk out on that court and play the game.

The lesson?

If you said Monica Seles

If you don’t win you can’t get away with it. And I win, I win, I always win. In the end I always win, whether it’s in golf, whether it’s in tennis, whether it’s in life, I just always win. And I tell people I always win, because I do. “I guess to a certain extent it is all about winning when you think about it, and it’s about style. It’s probably about winning with style. “A lot of people build a brand and they study it very carefully and every move is calculated. My moves are not calculated. My moves are totally uncalculated. I’ve got a brand, sometimes despite me. And it’s a hot brand.”6

The directional nature of happiness is one reason it’s a good idea to have a sport or hobby that leaves you plenty of room to improve every year. Tennis

Remember,” he said, grinning, “the one with the fewest errors wins. You overhit.

Question #124 Two boys play 7 games of tennis.  Each boy wins the same number of games, but there are no games that ended in a tie.  How did it happen?

After The Dark Side Of The Moon there had been a pronounced tendency for all of us to deliver criticism badly – and to take it even worse. Roger is sometimes credited with enjoying confrontation, but I don’t think that’s the case. I do think Roger is often unaware of just how alarming he can be, and once he sees a confrontation as necessary he is so grimly committed to winning that he throws everything into the fray – and his everything can be pretty scary. On the positive side I think it is an enormous asset to his golf, tennis and poker playing . . . David, on the other hand, may not be so initially alarming, but once decided on a course of action is hard to sway. When his immovable object met Roger’s irresistible force, difficulties were guaranteed to follow.

It’s not about the win or the loss; if we’re here to experience, then we are free.

The key is to remember that game of tennis. You still try to the best of your abilities. You play as well as you can. That realm of your thoughts and actions is under your control, and you are in charge. Whatever your role is – parent, sibling, citizen, worker, role model, president – you can do that thing in an exemplary fashion. Be the best you can be at what you are. Engage; inspire. Where there is injustice, and where it is under your control to make a difference, use your abilities to create change. But don’t ultimately emotionally commit yourself to the outcome. That’s out of your hands. You are not playing to necessarily win; you’re just playing as well as you possibly can. Marcus, one of the most powerful men and beloved rulers in history, writes to himself: Do your best to convince them. But act on your own, if justice requires it. If met with force, then fall back on acceptance and peaceability. Use the setback to practise other virtues. Remember that our efforts are subject to circumstances; you weren’t aiming at the impossible. Aiming to do what, then? To try. And you succeeded. What you set out to do is accomplished.52

As the Stoics say: “Do what you must; let happen what may.” We can inoculate ourselves against the bite of disappointment by switching from external to internal goals: not winning the tennis match but playing our best game; not seeing our novel published but writing the best, most honest one we are capable of writing. Nothing more, nothing less.

Imagine a tennis match in which Roger Federer is playing John, who is ranked 500 in the world. I ask you to bet 5 percent of your wealth on John winning the match. You refuse (I hope). But John wants you to bet on him. And so, before the match starts, in a face-to-face meeting with you, John makes an impassioned plea to ignore his ranking and recognize his innate talent. He speaks eloquently and makes a slick PowerPoint presentation on his plan to defeat Federer. John says he has been watching Federer’s game very closely for the past two years, and his plan, he believes, is exemplary. To bolster his claim, John invites one of the leading tennis coaches in the world, who admits that John’s plan is laudable and that he has a real chance of beating Federer. It’s decision time for you. Would you bet 5 percent of your wealth on John?

deep.

Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached.

Big winning stocks will display the following characteristics: Follow-through price action after a breakout More up days than down days and more up weeks than down weeks Tennis ball action—resilient price snapback after a pullback Strong volume on up days and up weeks compared to down days and down weeks More good closes than bad closes

Can you be totally intrinsically motivated? “Not necessarily, it’s not always black and white,” says Brad Feld, partner at the Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm Foundry Group. I consider Brad a good friend and an expert at understanding the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I met Brad through a good friend, Bing Gordon, the founder of EA Sports, and we quickly became friends. As he explains, “People fall along a continuum.” Brad uses tennis star Rafael Nadal as an example. He sees Nadal as having a blend of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Nadal clearly likes to win. He likes the limelight and the attention he gets. “Yet . . . Nadal, after he loses a match, he’s a very gracious loser, acknowledging that the other guy played better and did an awesome job,” Brad explained to me. Nadal recharges his battery by heading off to the beach, and then he is back in training for the next tournament. His daily training regime includes four hours of playing tennis on court, two and a half hours in the gym, and a strict stretching routine. He’s continued this training whether he is ranked at number one, five, or seven in the world. It’s for him, not for the ranking. Brad also believes something I’ve really taken to heart—that one person can’t truly motivate another person, a concept especially important in business when you manage people. “I can’t motivate another person, but [I can] create a context in which they are motivated, and part of being a leader is to understand what motivates other people,” explained Brad. “So if I’m the leader of an organization that you’re a part of, I have to understand what motivates you. Then I can create a context in which to motivate you. Most people struggle to understand how somebody else is motivated because they do it based on what motivates them.” Brad’s words ring true: While my own inspiration has come from various people, none of them actually motivated me. When I was extrinsically motivated, it was based largely on what others thought about me. My inner desire to win was based on extrinsic rewards. Only I had the power to change that.

The label finally decided I needed media training after I did an interview with the CBS Early Show at the Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, a concert that kicks off the U.S. Open every year in August. I have to admit that I did not know who Arthur Ashe was. Now I know he was one of the greatest tennis players in the world and the first African American man to win Wimbledon. When he came out as HIV positive in 1992, he created an impact that lasted long beyond his death a year later. But back then, I just showed up and sang where people told me to. 98 Degrees was going to perform, so I was excited to sing with Nick again. I barely knew who any of the tennis players were, even Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. During the interview before the concert, the tennis players and us singers stood off-stage, and we were each asked what it meant to be there to celebrate Arthur Ashe’s impact. “I’m just so proud to be here and to give back,” I said, and then turned to Andre Agassi. “This is such a great event you put on.” Andre’s eyes widened in a look of “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Everyone, including the news crew, realized I thought Andre was Arthur Ashe. The late Arthur Ashe.

In the bigger situations when I was nervous my percentages were better if I chipped my backhand return low and forced my opponent to hit a difficult low volley – the Gonzales, Newcombe strategy rather than the Ashe, Laver one.

Jeb Bush lost for many reasons, but the basic one is that he was running to win a race in a party that no longer existed. He was like a guy who showed up with a tennis racket at a bowling alley.

One of the lost pieces in the over programming of a tennis player is that practice match, or a friendly match just for the love of the game.

The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty. If you love tennis and try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become bored. It’s too easy. You’ll win every point. In contrast, if you play a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you will quickly lose motivation because the match is too difficult. Now consider playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few. You have a good chance of winning, but only if you really try. Your focus narrows, distractions fade away, and you find yourself fully invested in the task at hand. This is a challenge of just manageable difficulty and it is a prime example of the Goldilocks Rule.