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It was okay for Wayne Gretzky's dad, for instance, to give him a hockey stick, or Joe Montana's dad to give him a football, or Larry Bird's dad to give him a basketball, but it wasn't okay for Gloria Connors to give her son a tennis racquet.

Jimmy Connors

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Jimmy Connors
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: September 2
Tennis Coach
Tennis Player
East St. Louis
Illinois
James Scott Connors
Okay
Tennis
Football
Stick
Wasn
Sticks
Connors
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Gloria
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Montana
Son
Larry
Basketball
Wayne
Bird
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More quotes by Jimmy Connors

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With everything else that would swirl around me when I got involved in it, tennis was my main concern.
Jimmy Connors
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I am not looking to be understood or liked. Like me or not, I don't care. I am an outsider, that is the way I was brought up.
Jimmy Connors
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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.
Jimmy Connors
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Nothing's perfect along the way [in life], and you ride the ups and downs. It's how you come out of those and continue on that I guess really matters.
Jimmy Connors
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I hate to lose more than I like to win. I hate to see the happiness on their faces when they beat me!
Jimmy Connors
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The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it you are too old to take advantage of it.
Jimmy Connors
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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.
Jimmy Connors
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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.
Jimmy Connors
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What works for the person you're imitating may not work for you.
Jimmy Connors
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Big money encourages tanking. In my opinion, tanking is going on even with a lot of the top guys today - it's quite evident.
Jimmy Connors
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I'm not begging to be remembered or whatever. I did my thing, and if you remember, that's even better. But if you don't, there's so many other things going on.
Jimmy Connors
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Tennis was always there for me, which was lucky. I would go play baseball, basketball, football, hang with my brother, do whatever, and at the end of the day I'd come back and say, 'Hey, Mom, would you hit 15 minutes worth of balls with me?'
Jimmy Connors
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I always insist on my jeans being ironed. Is that a problem?
Jimmy Connors
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For the last five or six years the most important thing in my life has been my family.
Jimmy Connors
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I was never part of the crowd.
Jimmy Connors
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Playing in front of 25,000 people and millions more on television, and performing and doing what I worked so hard to try to accomplish was, in my opinion, the ultimate. Do I miss it? Of course I do.
Jimmy Connors
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Nothing is like being out there and playing and performing and winning - nothing. But to have an interest in the player? The nerves and everything that goes with it? Seeing what he's learned and how he's done it? That's the second best thing to playing. I think.
Jimmy Connors
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I had true rivalries. Not only did I want to beat my opponent, but I didn't want to let him up, either. I had a rivalry with Mac, Lendl, Borg. Everybody knew there was tension between us, on court and off. That's what's really ingrained in my mind: 'This is real. This isn't a soft rivalry.' There were no hugs and kisses.
Jimmy Connors
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Tennis was never work for me, tennis was fun. And the tougher the battle and the longer the match, the more fun I had.
Jimmy Connors
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There is only one number one. It is a lonely spot but it has got the best view of all.
Jimmy Connors