36 Quotes by John Newcombe

So there was a fire inside me. And that fire inside you, it can be turned into a negative form or a positive form. And I gradually realised that I had this fire and that it had to be used in a positive way.

Your game is only as good as your second serve.

There was kind of a code that you had as an Australian that you never left the court losing unless you had blood all over you. That’s the sort of toughness you need to compete on the world stage and I feel that our kids today just don’t have it.

I wouldn’t, a little bit frightened but throughout my life I’d learnt that when you’re in the serious situations, you’ve got to try to stay calm. Because that’s the way you get out of them.

You know, I eat, I ate pretty well anyway so, I’m basically living the same, I just curtailed the stupidity.

By the time I got to the hospital, I certainly realised that I had a problem because I couldn’t write or print at that time, which lasted luckily only about four months. I’d gone numb here and on my tongue and the right foot a little bit.

A few of us who are around the sixty mark don’t play that much these days and if you are taking on a couple of guys in their forties it is very difficult.

I’d also made the first tennis team. I was number two player in the school at 11 years of age and that didn’t sit very well with people.

I chose to stay with tennis and they didn’t understand that at the school.