Jimmy Connors Quotes & Trivia

Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

I hate to lose more than I love to win.

I want to bring the crowd into the match: in short, turn it into a football game.

I was never part of the crowd.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Use it or lose it.

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.

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.

Trivia

Jimmy Connors has his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Connors' career prize money totaled nearly 8.5 million dollars.

Connors was ranked in the top ten for 16 consecutive years (1973 - 1988).

Jimmy won a career 109 singles titles and was a finalist an additional 54 times.

Jimmy's mother, teaching pro Gloria Thompson Connors, was responsible for teaching her son the game.

Connors has won eight singles majors including Wimbledon (1974 and 1982), the Australian (1974), and the U.S. Open (1974, 1976, 1978, 1982, and 1983).

With 401 tournaments to his credit, Jimmy has played more tournaments and won more matches than any other male pro.

Jimmy Connors was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1988.

Jimmy's full name is James Scott Connors.