Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world. – Jacques Barzun
I have always considered tennis as a combat in an arena between two gladiators who have their racquets and their courage as their weapons. – Yannick Noah
Tennis is an addiction that once it has truly hooked a man will not let him go. – Russell Lynes
Good shot, bad luck, and hell are the five basic words to be used in a game of tennis, though these, of course, can be slightly amplified. – Virginia Graham, Say Please, 1949
The serve was invented so that the net could play. – Bill Cosby
Why has slamming a ball with a racquet become so obsessive a pleasure for so many of us? It seems clear to me that a primary attraction of the sport is the opportunity it gives to release aggression physically without being arrested for felonious assault. – Nat Hentoff
The primary conception of tennis is to get the ball over the net and at the same time to keep it within bounds of the court; failing this, within the borders of the neighborhood. – Elliot Chaze
A perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility. – Billie Jean King, about tennis
Tennis begins with love. – Author Unknown
Tennis is not a gentle game. Psychologically, it is vicious. That people are only just beginning to come to terms with this fact illustrates just how big a con trick has been perpetrated on the non-playing tennis public – and even a few players, usually losing players – for decades. – Richard Evans
Speed in tennis is a strange mixture of intuition, guesswork, footwork and hair-trigger reflexes. Many of the players famed for quickness on court would finish dead last in a field of schoolgirls in a race over any distance more than ten yards. – Eugene Scott
In tennis the addict moves about a hard rectangle and seeks to ambush a fuzzy ball with a modified snow-shoe. – Elliot Chaze
