Ivan Lendl's Quotes

If you go to school and practice for five days a week, it still gives you two days you can go and see your friends, you can go to the movies, you do whatever you like to do.

If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them.

In tennis you move a lot. Golf you don't. In tennis, you can have a bad half-hour, but you can't in golf. You can lose the first set in tennis and still win.

Many Czech people are very talented. They can do many things, but when they get to a certain level, they are satisfied. I am not like that, thank God.

Many tennis coaches are enablers. They need the job more than the player needs the coach, and if the coach needs the job more than the player needs the coach, he can't effect change.

Many times the players get in there and it's just about as well as they could have done, and other times they get in there and they favorites and they don't win.

Olympic gold is obviously right up there with a grand slam. It's a big win. You can say it's more, you can say it's less, you can say it's equal. It's very much up there.

People may say I developed an iron will, but what really happened is that I made myself much fitter. I think an iron will is always supported by fitness.

Tennis is basically a game where you try to create an opportunity for yourself to finish the point, because you can't wait for the opponent to miss anymore. Well, if you create an opportunity and don't take advantage of it, you let the opponent back to even, then you are just starting the point over, so you have to take advantage of them.

You can never guarantee the wins but you can guarantee that you give it 100%. That way you can always look back and feel comfortable, as a player or a coach.

You know, you just go out there, do your best. Sometimes it's good enough and sometimes it is, and sometimes it stays your only one and sometimes you win bunch others behind it.

It's very nice to see when somebody who wanted to work hard and is willing to put the work in gets rewarded for it.

I'm certainly not sorry that there were some things I missed. You may think you're missing something at that time but later when you look at it, you didn't miss anything.

I certainly don't lose any sleep if I lose a tennis match.

I enjoy life. I always enjoy jokes.

I got bad calls every match, and I never got an apology. So I thought it was rather strange.

I like to compete.

I was between 2 and 3 in the world for two, three years. That's not exactly where I wanted to be.

If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can.

If you become great, then you can become happy. If you're happy first, it's much more difficult to be great.

If you lose, it hurts, but as long as you have fought hard, you can still feel good about yourself.

It's flattering to be compared in any way to Tiger Woods, because he's the best player in the world.

My serve and my forehand I pretty much always had, but my backhand was a made backhand. I worked on it for years.

Not winning at Wimbledon is not going to bother me forever.

Once you win, you have no doubt that you can win. So you have gone through it once, and you can do it again.

Tennis is not like other sports where the coach is hired by an independent entity, and that makes a huge difference in the dynamic.