Boris Becker

Does anyone ask their parents how they are conceived?

Tennis is a psychological sport, you have to keep a clear head. That is why I stopped playing.

Every time you are not practicing someone else is.

I drew my strength from fear. Fear of losing. I don’t remember the games I won, only the games I lost.

Winning is a way of expressing yourself.

When you are thrown onto the stage at 17 in such an enormous way, it becomes living on the edge because every step you take, every word you speak, every action you do becomes headline news. And it became, for me, life or death.

For me, pressure is bird flu. I’m feeling a lot of pressure with the problem in Scotland. It’s not fun and I’m more scared of it than football.

I always work with a goal – and the goal is to improve as a player and a person. That, finally, is the most important thing of all.

My parents’ divorce made an important change in my life. It affected me.

It’s important for the young players to practice other ball games as well, basketball or table tennis. On the tennis court, you can improve your eye through a kind of overexertion.

All sports are continuously developing, but what they all have in common is that the speed is increasing. That’s also true of tennis; the ball is getting faster and faster.

I’m always searching for new music, and I change what I listen to on a regular basis.

The worst thing is to play too defensively. I need to play with more intensity and be aggressive. If I do that, I’m going to do well because my touch is good.

Above all, such sports as judo, in my view, teach people to relate to each other. They teach us to respect a partner, teach us to understand that an externally weak partner can not only put up worthy resistance, but, if you relax and take too much for granted, may even win.

I know my serve stinks, but I was a pretty good tennis player.

I started to travel like this at the age of 15 so for me, it’s normal. Some days you get tired and you feel, ‘I want to stay at home a little bit more,’ but it’s only the moment.

Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.

I am a guy who likes to do what I am doing with passion, whether it’s a soccer match with friends or golf.

My serve can get better, for sure. It’s not just about serving bombs, but positioning, variation in speed, in spin.

Don’t think about being the number one in the world, try instead to get through today’s program as well as you can. Then we will see whether one day you’ll end up as number one or number 100.

The boys are so powerful off of the baseline now that they don’t have to come to the net to finish points. That’s the reason we went to the net. To finish the point. Nowadays, even the big guys can hit winners four feet behind the baseline.