A Quote by Evonne Goolagong Cawley

Because I've had time off, I've learned to appreciate tennis more - to put something back into it. — © Evonne Goolagong Cawley
Because I've had time off, I've learned to appreciate tennis more - to put something back into it.
After almost 30 years of playing this sport, I've learned something. I've learned that, no matter what happens, or happened... or where you are, or where you've been... at the end of the day: tennis is tennis. It's always, always tennis. And there's nothing better.
I felt sad because everyday I had to wake up early to practice before going to school. After school I had to go back to tennis again, and then after tennis I had homework. I didn't have time to play.
Memory implies that there is some static time and place you can go back to, whereas if you relive it by trying to put yourself back in that context, its more nuanced, less black and white. More traumatic, but also more exciting. When I knew I had to write about things that would be painful, I put off doing it for ages. But then eventually the fear of not doing it becomes greater than the fear of doing it.
If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.
I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. What I learned from it is that today seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly.
All my time in rehab has made me appreciate tennis more than ever.
I just want to be able to show who I really am, what I can do, bring awareness, create something because I want to take tennis, women's tennis, into an even more exciting path because I believe we have a lot more things to offer.
People in tennis, they've been in a certain bubble for so long they don't even know who they are, because obviously it's just been tennis, tennis, tennis. And let it be just tennis, tennis, tennis. Be locked into that. But when tennis is done, then what? It's kinda like: Let's enjoy being great at the sport.
Tennis would be much more exciting if they had pitching machines firing Tennis was given to me to keep me off the street corners of east St. Louis.
I don't have the luxury of sitting around any more. I must have had bags of spare time before I had children, but I don't know what I did with it and I didn't appreciate it. But it's such a terrific trade-off. I don't have time to get a pedicure, but I sure am happy. Who cares if your feet look bad?
The first thing I would do is create one office that controlled all of pro tennis so you had one central voice that spoke for tennis. Central governance is something that's really held the sport back and will continue to do so.
I was always interested in music, I felt it was time to do it, coming out of the punk scene [1979]. I thought it was ideal that anyone could just put together a group and make it work. Then, of course, it became a little more detailed after starting it and realizing that it was something serious, not just a one-off situation. I had to put a lot more into it. Also I did it to get a lot of things out of my system, things that had been put there while I was growing up in my family. A sort of exorcizing of demons.
I learned to bat and bowl on different pitches and knew when to go hard and when to back off. It was just something I learned.
I did it in pre-season when we had a bounce game, I went in for a slide tackle and my back was in pain, so I came off. I had a scan a couple of days later and it showed that up. I was worried as there was a little fracture in my back but the physio said I'd be fine and he put my mind at ease. I had two weeks off and was told to do nothing.
I learned more of how to appreciate what I had then - my family, my kids, the talent that God gives you - because He can take it away at any time. He took it away from Brian through death. He took it away from me through my knees.
Every time I am off the tennis tour, I go back home.
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