Best quotes by Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi

American former world No. 1 tennis player

Andre Kirk Agassi (born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and a 1996 Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other Grand Slam tournaments.

Agassi was the first man to win four Australian Open singles titles in the Open Era (though later surpassed by Novak Djokovic, who won his fifth title in 2015). Agassi is the second of five men to achieve the career Grand Slam in the Open Era and the fifth of eight overall to make the achievement. He is also the first of two men to achieve the career Golden Slam (career Grand Slam and Olympic gold medal), and the only man to win a career Super Slam (career Grand Slam, plus the Olympic gold medal and the year-end championships).

Agassi was the first man to win all four singles majors on three different surfaces (hard, clay and grass), and remains the most recent American man to win the French Open (in 1999) and the Australian Open (in 2003). He also won 17 ATP Masters Series titles and was part of the winning Davis Cup teams in 1990, 1992 and 1995. Agassi reached the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 1995 but was troubled by personal issues during the mid-to-late 1990s and sank to No. 141 in 1997, prompting many to believe that his career was over. Agassi returned to No. 1 in 1999 and enjoyed the most successful run of his career over the next four years. During his 20-plus year tour career, Agassi was known by the nickname "The Punisher".

After suffering from sciatica caused by two bulging discs in his back, a spondylolisthesis (vertebral displacement) and a bone spur that interfered with the nerve, Agassi retired from professional tennis on September 3, 2006, after losing in the third round of the US Open. He is the founder of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which has raised over $60 million for at-risk children in Southern Nevada. In 2001, the Foundation opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, a K-12 public charter school for at-risk children. He has been married to fellow tennis player Steffi Graf since 2001.

All quotes by Andre Agassi:

All the good stuff is on the other side of tired.

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

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.

It's 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 it's 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. It's our choice.

If you don't practice you don't deserve to win.

Remember this. Hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting meaning. This is why we're here. To make each other feel safe.

Success doesn't always come in the form of a trophy. Keep striving for success.

Life will throw everything but the kitchen sink in your path, and then it will throw the kitchen sink. It's your job to avoid the obstacles. If you let them stop you or distract you, you're not doing your job, and failing to do your job will cause regrets that paralyze you more than a bad back.

Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work

I can live with losing, I can't live without taking my chance.

It's easier to live with disappointment than regret.

If I've learned nothing else, it's that time and practice equal achievement.

A strong body listens. It obeys. A weak body commands. If your body is weak it tells you what to do. If your body is strong it'll actually listen to you when you tell it to do something. If you build it right you can overcome some of the obstacles of age and recovery.

A great coach can lead you to a place where you don't need him any more.

What you feel doesn’t matter in the end; it’s what you do that makes you brave.

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.

I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have.

The great part about tennis is you can't run out the clock.... As long as we were still playing, I had a chance.

If I don't do what I need to do to win, I won't win, no matter who is on the other side of the net.

Hate brings me to my knees, love gets me on my feet.

I feel old when I see mousse in my opponent's hair.

This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others.

You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, but none will mean more to you than that applause from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end.

You have to have the mentality of executing your game when you don't feel like there's a lot of hope. I think the best feeling is when somebody pushes you to the limit and you dig down a little bit extra. By the same token, you also need a little luck. Sometimes they come together.

I've been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep.

It never seizes to amaze me how much I enjoy playing here and how much you fans have meant to me over the years.

There's a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. Get yourself tired.

I question myself every day. That's what I still find motivating about this. I don't have the answers, I don't pretend that I do just because I won the match. Just keep fighting and maybe something good happens.

No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, but tennis players talk to themselves-and answer. Tennis players look like lunatics in a public square.

How lovely it is to dream while you are awake.

You have to understand who you are and figure out a way to communicate it. It might be in a different industry, but it's about what pumps the blood through your veins, what makes you excited, what pushes your buttons. And then discovering the best way to communicate that, no matter how big or small; it's what you stand for, what you believe in, and what reflects who you are.

Big dreams are so damn tiring.

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.

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

The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn't say is what it is I have found. Over the last 21 years, I have found loyalty. You have pulled for me on the court and also in life. I found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments, and I've found generosity. You have given me your shoulders to stand on to reach for my dreams, dreams I could never have reached without you.

Hitting a ball dead perfect - the only peace.

I've been motivated by overcoming challenge and overcoming the hurdles and obstacles that face me. There still is plenty out there to get motivated by.

Hitting the ball has never been my issue, so I can literally not pick up a racquet for two months and hit the ball, really, really nicely. I mean movement's always an issue.

Tennis is the loneliest sport.

Tennis is at an amazing time when you've got two of the best players ever to play the game. You can argue the two very best playing in the same generation. It's a rivalry I think that we've never seen in our sport.

To be inspired - that's the secret.

You've got to believe you can win. But I believe respect for the fact that you can lose is what you always have to keep in mind so that nothing suprises you.

Yes, for a long time but I admired her and respected everything that I could sort of see in her from a distance, the pillars of her life, the loyalties, the relationships. It all got my interest and also the looks.

Tennis was always sort of a - a learning. It was a vehicle for me to discover a lot about myself.

When I was 7 years old I saw Jimmy Connors make someone carry his bag, as though he were Julius Caesar. I vowed then and there that I would always carry my own.

You don't cheat anybody out of their experience, whatever it is.

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Tennis was always sort of a - a learning. It was a vehicle for me to discover a lot about myself. And the things that I sort of discovered at times I not only didn't want to see it for myself but I certainly didn't want millions of people to see it.

This sport has given me so much that my hope would be to give back as much as I can for as long as I can.

In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement.

If Pete’s (Sampras) child is a girl, my son will like her; if he’s a boy, my son will defeat him.

Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.

I always felt tennis and winning was a byproduct of doing everything right.

I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis.

Sometimes it's just harder to remind yourself about what you're doing and why you're doing it... Other times, you have a great desire for it, but physically you're not responding the way you want. That presents other challenges. Then sometimes it all comes together.

Being number two sucks.

My only good result in 1997 was marrying Brooke Shields.

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.

Tennis is a very objective sport in the sense that the scoreboard doesn't lie.

I envy Pete Sampras's dullness. I wish I could emulate his spectacular lack of inspiration.

I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Pete's baby. I just think genetics are in my favour.

My father actually moved out from Chicago just so he could play tennis 365 days a year, so it was - it was a place we played every day. We played before school. We played after school. We woke up. We played tennis. We brushed our teeth in that order.

The most animated talks we have are about...things

I think one of the greatest joys I have now in my career and in my profession is to be playing at an age where I can appreciate it more than I used to... It's a whole different lens you look through the older you get.

I had my moments for sure but I wasn't confrontational. And sometimes you get on the court and you'd find yourself very confrontational. It was all a discovery.

But, I would say when I was four years old and I was at the Alan King Tennis Tournament and I was hitting with all the pros that would come to town. They would get me on the court or take notice and that stayed with me.

I had moments of my actions and words not reflecting who it is I am - if that defines a punk, then yes, absolutely.

It's shocking how little there is to do with tennis when you're just thinking about nothing except winning every point.

That's the greatest applause that any person will ever receive in their life when it comes from their peers

Pride is bad, stress is good. I don't want to feel confident. I want to feel rage. Endless, all consuming rage.

The best predictor of future events is probably past events.

People who are interested with me have for sure gotten older over the years, for example, grandparents are coming up to me telling me they grew up watching me.

Every now and then I will play; I try to focus on charitable work. I might do it because it's an offer I can't refuse, so I rally and try to stay in shape and keep myself active.

If you're ranked number one in the world it's because you've earned it, and I think the only way to really get there is to have that ability and to have it nurtured in a very competitive environment at an early age.

I suppose you could never say never, but my experience would tell me that the most successful players in the world are gonna come from an environment that is more competitive at an early age.