Top 123 Quotes & Sayings by Roger Federer - Page 2

The crowds are very important for tennis. It makes you play better, but it can also make you nervous and that's the beauty of it.

With all the injury problems we have in men's tennis at the moment, I'm happy to still be standing.

I'm not angry. As an athlete ... you should be open to criticism, and you're allowed to be criticized, because not everybody has the same opinion, not everybody likes the same players. The rankings are quite volatile: Today you're 'great,' tomorrow you're 'not,' but then you're 'great' again. It makes for great stories. Now, I always look at the long term and by doing that, obviously, I can stay calm through the storm.

You can be stubborn and successful or you can give it up a bit and change things around. For me it's important to have a bit of both.

The nicer the point, the more -- the better I feel, the more excited I get. But I never play that my opponent looks stupid. I think that is wrong. I have too much respect for every opponent I play.

I am very blessed to be able to play tennis, the sport that I love and very grateful for the opportunities to play in the finals of big events, when the season starts you are on the roll constantly and obliged to be committed to daily routines on and off the court.

One of my big, big strengths I think early on in my career was that I could learn very quickly. You wouldn't have to tell me the things 10 times or 50 times until I would understand them. You would only have to tell me two or three times.

Once you reach a good level in tennis it fills you with a lot of motivation. I hope I can do it for a long time.

Confidence? Are you kidding me? I mean, please. Look, some players grow up and play like that. I remember losing junior matches. Just being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots.

Watching a movie a couple of weeks ago. An American movie. I can't remember the name, but it wasn't even a sad movie. It caught me off guard. I was on an airplane.

I hope so. God, I've practiced so much that I you don't want to be worse five years later. I feel I have a great game today. I know how hard it is to pull off those great shots, and I know how easy it is to miss, so I'm more aware of these things. But I'm so happy I'm at the age I am right now because I had such a great run and I know there's still more possible.

Mentally, I'm not ever going to go away.

I had a nice dinner. I let the evening unfold, flow. I like to sit in a chair with a wine glass. When I woke up, I thought, 'Why didn't I go to bed at 11?' I came back at 3 and went to bed at 5.

In the locker room I was getting impatient to get on the court, I had to warm up several times.

My wife doesn't like Football but she watches it just for Messi.

One or two years ago, I didn't know who I was on court and I used to swear a lot. But now I've learned how to cope and can therefore win 10 matches in a row. I want to be remembered as a good player rather than an idiot on court.

I never waited 27 years, because 27 years ago I was just born. My parents never told me, 'If you don't win Roland Garros we take you to the orphanage.

One should just be able to play a perfect game.

I definitely need to use my chances when they come because definitely there wont be many.

I definitely feel there's room for improvement.

For me, I'm in the driver's seat; I'm No. 1 in the world. I've won the last couple of meetings, and I've won the big tournaments lately. Whoever comes, I'll try to beat him. But it's almost up to me to decide who's my rival, isn't it?

Previously I always thought it was just tactical and technique, but every match has become almost mental and physical - I try to push myself to move well. I try to push myself not to get upset and stay positive, and that's what my biggest improvement is over all those years. Under pressure I can see things very clear.

I'm not the kind of guy who wakes up angry.

The problem is not the claycourt. The problem is, you know, rather something to do with the conditions on center court. Because I've played well on Suzanne Lenglen, on the other courts. But the Chatrier court is really, really big, and I just haven't had enough play on it. Maybe I come here next year and play a week on this court, if I can, if the French Federation lets me. We'll see. I've been playing well in other tournaments, in Davis Cup on clay. So for me it's not the surface, it's rather maybe the court.

Seriously. I'm not playing to prove anything to journalists. I'm playing for myself, for my fans,to make people happy.

It is always in my mind still that I can crush anybody. That's not an issue. But I think that is the same for most athletes. If you don't believe you can win tournaments anymore, then you can't do it.

I have a very strong opinion. I'm absolutely against it. I'm against the challenge system. I'm for the way it is right now. Don't change that.

It's not so simple to just stay in the moment and trust your game and your strength that you can turn it around.

Hopefully I can just have another terrible year with only the one Grand Slam and that will be just fine.

Maybe further down the road in my career, in a couple of years when I'm maybe not that fast any more around the court, then maybe it would be good to come to the net a little bit more often

Early in my career, I had no consistency. Now I'm the most consistent player on the tour. It feels pretty good.

I haven't had a cramp since '99. That was my only time, in Davis Cup, when I was panicky. I was young. I'm very proud of that. Never pulled out. Never had cramps. Never lost very much because of fitness, especially later on in my career where I knew I've put in the hard work. I've done that. I've been very fortunate and clever as well to understand how I need to work, when I need to work. So I'm very happy to have stayed injury free for so long. I hope I can still maintain a few good years on the tour. I really hope so.

I was aware of how incredible the match was. Unfortunately there had to be a winner. From my point of view many left feeling sorry for me instead of being happy for Rafa. Which hurts.

My advice is you've got to make sure you wear the clothes and not [let] the clothes wear you. It's quite simple in a way. Don't wear something you totally feel uncomfortable with, but take some chances. Play around a bit. I felt very uncomfortable in suits when I was younger, so what I just started doing was wearing suits when I was going to dinner. I used to overdress a little bit so I got used to wearing suits. Now wearing a suit is like wearing a track suit for me. So it's all good.

Winning or losing, it's always something special and something you'll remember, even more so when the match was as dramatic as it was today. It's even more memorable when I see my kids there with my wife and everything. That's what touched me the most, to be quite honest. The disappointment of the match itself went pretty quickly.

Being down match point, it's just not fun.

I don't know how you can go through a four-hour match with Rafa and he never gets a time violation.

Every match I go into, I'm the huge favorite. I lose a set and it's, like, crazy.

I used to do a lot of video analysis early on, but more for pleasure and looking at my own technique.

I can walk around screaming, 'I have 17 Grand Slams. I have the record here or there.' When you can play for history and you do it, that's what is so really cool, is that you can then be compared to other greats or you've passed another great, even though it doesn't mean you're better than him. But it's just like that moment you've gone into the unknown where nobody else has ever been before.

I always knew I had something special.

My family is the thing I miss most on the tour.

When they [court announcers] say, 'This is the world No. 2,' it just doesn't sound right to me because either I'm No. 1 or I'm a grand slam champion. I'm not world No. 2. I just don't like the ring of it when I'm introduced on court because I've been up there for so, so long.

I love tennis! I've always felt like this because it is such a classy sport with a great, competitive flair to it.

I'm at the top of my game so, when I win or lose, I don't freak out...I don't think we can call it a rivalry yet. There's just to many great players around.

You can't expect yourself to be already peaking like crazy in an exhibition tournament.

I'm shocked every time that I've reached so many finals or won against so many players or whatever record it is. It strikes me and makes me obviously very happy and very proud that I've been able to do it for so many years at the highest of levels.

I am thinking more and more about what I want to and can do after my days as an active athlete. Thoughts like family and marriage also cross my mind more and more often.

You've never seen me dance, have you?

I let the evening unfold. I'm the sort of guy who likes to sit in the chair and look at the wine glass.

I would so like to be Lenny Kravitz.

I'm playing great tennis. I'm enjoying the tour, having fun with the fans off the court. I'm loving it now.

Sometimes I am a different character in different languages. I have different enjoyment from them. Sometimes different answers come out of me. Like, I didnt even know that about me. I get to know myself through different languages, actually.

I'm proud to be a symbol like the army knife or the mountains.

I never expected i, in the first place, when I started playing tennis, that I would ever carry the flag into the Olympic Stadium for an Olympic Games... So for me that was a surprise and a huge honor in my life to be able to represent Switzerland.

The week before the (US Open) I gave a few interviews for CNN, USA Network, New York Times, USA Today and Sports Illustrated which had been arranged beforehand. The reason for giving these interviews is not only because working with the media is just part of the job, it is much more my desire to contribute to the promotion of tennis in the U.S.

It's just unreal, I'm shocked myself. I've played good matches here, but never really almost destroyed somebody.

My aim over the next few months is that I have a lot of points to defend in Miami and Hamburg, after that I can set my sights on No. 1.

No, I'm not (disappointed). There's no reason to be because I'm on an incredible run. You always expect a loss once in a while. So when it happens, why be disappointed if I win over 90% of my matches.

Simple version for me is, umm, started bad and finished bad basically.