Tennis Quotes To Celebrate Martina Navratilova’s Birthday

Ready for some tennis quotes? If you’re a Martina Navratilova fan you are! This month we celebrate this tennis great’s birthday. Here are 14 tennis quotes (many her own) to celebrate her love for the game and her contributions to the world of tennis.

1. Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you’re needed by someone. ~ Martina Navratilova

2. If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that’s a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there’s going to be a life after tennis that’s a lot longer than your tennis life. ~ Chris Evert

3. The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall. ~ Mitch Hedberg

4. Tennis and golf are best played, not watched. ~ Roger Kahn quotes

5. I think the key is for women not to set any limits. ~ Martina Navratilova

6. Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility. ~ Billie Jean King

7. The fifth set is not about tennis, it’s about nerves. ~ Boris Becker 8. What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose. ~ Andre Agassi

9. Women’s tennis is the leader in women’s sports. Equal prize money is a no-brainer. ~ Billie Jean King

10. The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed. ~ Martina Navratilova

11. By the way, what a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be “sorry” and admiration of each other’s play crosses the net as frequently as the ball. ~ Sir James Matthew Barrie

12. Your inner beliefs and notions about tennis, create, govern and become everything you do on the court. ~ Dale LePrevost

13. Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people. ~ Martina Navratilova

14. The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are their worst. ~ Martina Navratilova

Most of the people who have met Martina Navratilova or have watched her play tennis admire her skill and personality. From winning on the court to becoming a role model for millions, she’s made quite the impression on many. Whether you admire her tennis skills or admire her bravery as a person, these 14 tennis quotes are a great way to celebrate her birthday this year.

Nasty – Steffi – Maggie – Who Is The Best Tennis Player Of All Time

The first question that comes to mind may be; man or woman? In my view it could be either gender, because this is about tennis the sport as an all inclusive theme:

-Race
-Sex
-Charisma
-Personality
-Popularity
-Shot-making
-Grace
-Toughness
-Grit
-Guts
-Coolness
-Charm
-Image
-Power
-Athleticism
-Spirit of sacrifice
-Fairness
-Bully-ness
-Competitiveness
-Respect
-Record
-and more.

If one was to limit this analysis to plain cold numbers and to one gender or the other it would be simple, Bjorn Borg or Rod Laver – men, Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graff – women.

Tennis is a lot more than that, take for example charisma and popularity:

– For example, in 1974 Illie Nastase was playing on court Nr. 6 in Barcelona against Roger Taylor and Manolo Orantes (the super popular local matador) was playing Jos Moreno on central court at the same time. Which court do you think was full and which was empty?
Illie Nastases court was full! The Spanish, are great lovers of great tennis and showmanship – Nasty gave it all to them. I would say he had to be the most charismatic tennis player of all time!

About race and respect:

– Take Arthur Ashe an African-American man living in the USA in an era where he, a world class tennis player, was not even allowed into the changing rooms of certain tennis clubs in his own country. This man overcame all sporting challenges, all racial abuse, all social inequalities and became a beloved son of his country and the world! The all-time most respected gentleman tennis player in tennis history.

Tennis and shot-making:

– We all know Rod Laver because he is the only player to ever win 4 Grand Slam singles titles in the same calendar year twice – in 1962 as an amateur and 1969 as a professional and he is the only male player during the open era to have won a calendar year Grand Slam (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open).
His opponents knew something that the regular public could hardly come to grasp. They all came out of the court baffled with his shot-making under pressure. Rod Laver, time and time again, got out of the most daring situations many of them at match points, by producing the most incredible and least expected shots his opponents could ever imagine he would go for! Indeed the best shot-maker ever!

The Guts and Athleticism:

– Two women come clearly to mind Margret Court and Martina Navratilova, to appreciate these two incredible women athletes, you have to look at todays mens tennis and see how the great majority of the ATP professionals cower behind the baseline. These two women embarrass those men players with their courageous, relentless, top level athleticism by having served and volleyed and attacked the net with giant hearts and incredible guts! No question the very best ever and I must have Billy Jean King join them.

And how about Grace:

– You can go around the tennis court and beat the hell out of your opponents and nobody will ever give a hoot about you. That was not the case of Maria Ester Bueno from Brasil, she charmed the public with the beauty of her movement, fluidness of her game and some very sharp volleying. The most graceful of all time and I must add two others in this department Evonne Goolagong and Roger Federer.

The power juggernaut:

– You may start to think about a,b or c player from today, but you have to go back many decades to a man called Lew Hoad. If there is any one player that could obliterate unceremoniously any player of any given era with a very short score, Lew Hoad is such player. Hands down, the hardest hitter of all time!

The heart of tennis – competitiveness and bully-ness:

– There is no player in the history of tennis that is regarded by his peers with so much respect as fear and loath. Pancho Gonzales was a natural born winner with a big W. If he lost (which he seldom did), his hand shake at the net often came with a warning: I will beat you the next time! The most competitive bully of all time. Here I must join two lesser heavy weights in this department, nevertheless ferocious competitors, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. Between meeting any one of these three on a tennis court and sitting in a tub full of rattle snakes, I would choose the latter.

The fairness in professional sport:

– Defeat for a champion is the most difficult part to accept and giving credit to your opponent is even more challenging. Steffi Graf was the exception, even when injured and debilitated, she never mentioned it as an excuse for defeat and she would rather compliment her opponents. Indeed a great championess and the fairest player of all time. No wonder she married Andre Agassi he was special in that department too.

There is plenty more but, I hope I gave you a sense of how great the game of tennis is with all of these facets that so much form a mosaic of where winning is important, but the record alone cannot cover the whole sport.

Personal Trainer-tennis

Do you need a personal trainer to help you to improve your tennis and to get fit in the process? Your personal trainer knows how to help you polish your groundstroke, how to add skill and art to your volleys, and how to add spin and power to your serve. Your personal trainer is an excellent guide to all your tennis training requirements.

Your personal trainer will work with you on the tennis court to help you practice form and technique. However, including resistance training and cardiovascular training can also help the overall fitness program to improve you, your body, and your tennis game. Doing certain sport specific training can support and compliment your tennis game.

It is important to sustain your levels of physical activity when on the court so you dont get tired, so endurance training is essential to keep up your stamina when playing tennis. Your personal trainer will also work with you on speed, fast reaction time, overhead swing strength, arm and leg strength, core body strength, and flexibility.

The instruction and guidance of your personal trainer will improve your game and will give you an advantage in avoiding sports injuries. If you are right-handed, then you will be doing your serves and most of your return tennis hits using your right hand and utilizing all the muscles of your dominant side more frequently. This very nature of the sport can lend itself to common tennis muscle injuries if you are not careful. Your personal trainer is available to help you prevent injuries.

Research from the University of Alberta Canada has found that female athletes experience more injuries and medical problems than male athletes (ScienceDaily.com, 2010). So, for certain, your personal trainer will watch out for you and give you special advice if you are a female tennis player.

Your personal trainer knows that your hip muscles need to be strengthened in order to prevent injury in playing tennis. When you advance in tennis, serves and groundstrokes will be stronger and faster. You need to change direction constantly to keep up with the tennis game. The nature of the tennis game and the muscle positions you will use lend themselves readily to potential injuries on the tennis court.

Your personal trainer will work with you on the court to improve your game, but off-court tennis related exercises will give you the added benefit of an injury-free, fit, strong, and healthy body that can hold up during a rigorous tennis game.

There are many famous tennis players who have had personal trainers who have helped them to reach their tennis goals, not to mention toning and strengthening them to achieve their fabulous, fit bodies. Some tennis pros you probably already know are players, such as, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Steffi Graf, Billie Jean King, and Martina Navratilova.

All the tennis pros have been trained by their personal trainers for specific goals in mind related to the sport. Your personal trainer will focus your attention on cardiovascular exercises to increase your stamina in an outdoor environment which is similar to that of the climate when playing tennis. The activities your personal trainer may have you do include swimming in an outdoor pool, bicycling in nature, jogging, and running.

To improve you speed and reaction time and eye-hand coordination on the tennis court, your personal trainer may have you do drills, side-steps, and medicine ball tosses with your personal trainer. Each of these activities are aimed at specific skill-improving methods of training.

And to gain power and muscle strength for your tennis game, your personal trainer will have you do moderate weight-lifting. It must be stressed that moderate weight-lifting, not excessive weight-lifting, is needed for tennis. The reason is because you want to maintain speed and have a light enough body weight to do so, as well as being strong for powerful serves. Your personal trainer is the ideal guide to set you on the right track in your tennis performance on the tennis court.