Jimmy Connors Quotations

I hate to lose more than I love to win.

I had true rivalries. Not only did I want to beat my opponent, but I didn't want to let him up, either. I had a rivalry with Mac, Lendl, Borg. Everybody knew there was tension between us, on court and off. That's what's really ingrained in my mind: 'This is real. This isn't a soft rivalry.' There were no hugs and kisses.

Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you're too damned old to do anything about it.

I think my greatest victory was every time I walked out there, I gave it everything I had. I left everything out there. That's what I'm most proud of. I can't go win Wimbledon anymore, so if what I've done in the past is not good enough, let it go. Because I'm certainly not sitting around thinking about it.

Bjorn was a different breed, I threw my best material at him, but he would never smile, but that added to the charm when he played me and Mac. We were going nuts and losing our mind and he was sitting back like he was on a Sunday stroll.

New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.

Tennis was never work for me, tennis was fun. And the tougher the battle and the longer the match, the more fun I had.

Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible.

Tennis was always there for me, which was lucky. I would go play baseball, basketball, football, hang with my brother, do whatever, and at the end of the day I'd come back and say, 'Hey, Mom, would you hit 15 minutes worth of balls with me?'

I am not looking to be understood or liked. Like me or not, I don't care. I am an outsider, that is the way I was brought up.

Every time I went out there I performed the best that I could and it was time to step back and clear my mind.

I would watch Gonzalez play and he mesmerized you. It would be like looking into the flame of a fire. You know you couldn't take your eyes off him because you never knew what he would do next.

It was okay for Wayne Gretzky's dad, for instance, to give him a hockey stick, or Joe Montana's dad to give him a football, or Larry Bird's dad to give him a basketball, but it wasn't okay for Gloria Connors to give her son a tennis racquet.

Nothing is like being out there and playing and performing and winning - nothing. But to have an interest in the player? The nerves and everything that goes with it? Seeing what he's learned and how he's done it? That's the second best thing to playing. I think.

I was raised by two women, and that laid the groundwork for the way I treat 'em: with the utmost respect and admiration.

I always insist on my jeans being ironed. Is that a problem?

Back in East St. Louis, tennis wasn't the real thing. If you weren't playing baseball, basketball, football, you were kind of on the outside.

I've been kicked in the teeth more times in tennis than the law ought to allow.

From where we lived, to practise in St Louis was an hour-and-a-half drive each way, so that took a lot of the time. So really, our lives just took different paths.

No, like I said, my dad was never really part of the tennis. His involvement around what I did with the tennis and with my mom and my grandparents was really not a part of my life.

There was never anything I wanted to do more than play tennis. Never once walked out there and thought, 'I wish I was doing something else.' Not once.

But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?

For the last five or six years the most important thing in my life has been my family.

Playing in front of 25,000 people and millions more on television, and performing and doing what I worked so hard to try to accomplish was, in my opinion, the ultimate. Do I miss it? Of course I do.

Was I as close to my dad as with my mom? No, of course not. Is my daughter as close with me as she is with my wife? No, of course not.

I've been waiting for a project that grabbed my attention and this is it. The DVD will reflect the attitude and passion that I put into the way I played tennis.

It's a youth-driven sport. There's no doubt about it, like all sports. But tennis is exceptional in throwing away the old and shuffling in the new, sometimes even before their time on both sides.

It was like bulls banging heads. He brought out the best and the worst in me and I like to think I did the same with him. Jimmy is one of the greatest players that ever lived, in my opinion. He's like the Pete Rose of tennis. I never seen a guy try as hard as this person on a tennis court. That's something I really respected.

Playing in front of 25,000 people and millions more on television, and performing and doing what I worked so hard to try to accomplish was, in my opinion, the ultimate. Do I miss it? Of course I do.

You have to remember that I played longer than anybody else on the main tour; I played until I was 40, and then played another six years or so on the seniors tour.

People don't seem to understand that it's a damn war out there.

I was never part of the crowd.

I like any title with the letters U.S. in front of it. To me, the U.S. Open is the most important tournament in the world.

What works for the person you're imitating may not work for you.

Tennis would be much more exciting if they had pitching machines firing Tennis was given to me to keep me off the street corners of east St. Louis.

There is only one number one. It is a lonely spot but it has got the best view of all.

I'm not begging to be remembered or whatever. I did my thing, and if you remember, that's even better. But if you don't, there's so many other things going on.

When you're hot, anything can happen.

Nothing's perfect along the way [in life], and you ride the ups and downs. It's how you come out of those and continue on that I guess really matters.

The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it you are too old to take advantage of it.

The minute you think you know everything about tennis is the minute your game starts going down the tubes.

I don't go out there to love my enemy. I go out there to squash him.

People say I'm around because I have a lot of heart, but I know all the heart in the world couldn't have helped me if I wasn't physically fit.

That's something a lot of athletes miss - a lot of them walk away too soon. They don't get everything out of their system. They have a lot of what-ifs when they're sitting around later in life. I don't have that. I got all that out of my system. I pushed it to the brink, I loved it, and when I walked away, I'd had enough.

Equality? They ought to play the women's final on opening day. Everybody knows who's going to be in it.

Big money encourages tanking. In my opinion, tanking is going on even with a lot of the top guys today - it's quite evident.

I'm getting tired of saying hello to Stan Smith and not getting any reply. I'm cocky and confident and maybe I'm too bullheaded sometimes, but I think I have some fan and player support. I know what the others say, but I'm not that obnoxious. I am not a punk. I'm 5' 10", 155 pounds. I've got broad shoulders and I can pack a punch. Most of these guys are windbags anyway. If they ever try anything with me, I'll be to the net fast.

With everything else that would swirl around me when I got involved in it, tennis was my main concern.

I never lost a tennis match, I just ran out of time

In the modern game, you’re a clay court specialist, a grass court specialist or a hard court specialist ... or you’re Roger Federer.

I can't say that I was my happiest on court, but I felt completely free. Free from family obligations, free from my own torment. In a real sense I was a different person. It was a place where I could not tolerate the idea of being beaten. I psyched myself up into a state where I felt something close to hatred towards my opponent, a state where I detested the idea of someone making his name at the expense of Jimmy Connors. I was in my element on court, measuring myself against someone else. I was not competitive for show. It came from deep within.

Greatest thing in life: Winning a tennis match. Second greatest thing in life: Losing a tennis match

People don't seem to understand that it's a damn war out there. Maybe my methods aren't socially acceptable to some, but it's what I have to do to survive. I don't go out there to love my enemy. I go out there to squash him.

I hate to lose more than I like to win. I hate to see the happiness on their faces when they beat me!