John Newcombe quotes:

You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit.

That match was late evening and I had the experience of the electricity of the Centre Court because it was packed, a full house for the whole match. It had been a great year for me, first time there and I had the full taste of Wimbledon.

It's actually what I consider legalised cheating because one of the great senses that you have on a tennis court is your ability to hear the ball come off your opponent's strings [on Sharapova grunting

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.

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 had started my love affair with Wimbledon.

They wrote it that my moustache was insured for 13 million.

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.

I was in the main draw from the start, my opening match was on Court One against Jan Eric Lundquist of Sweden who was about eight in the world at the time.

I was a pretty feisty young kid.

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.

At Wimbledon, the ladies are simply the candles on the cake.

The strongest and most dangerous enemy you will ever face is a negative attitude. Learn to recognize when it is trying to invade your body and mind, then simply refuse it entry.

Well, he can't be dumb, I mean, because he's been president for four years and he's president again, so you're going to get caught out if you're really bad, aren't you? Unless millions and millions of Americans are dumb.

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.

People think this is all about the top players hitting tenins balls and they talk about technique and strategy and how important that is. But they don't understand the essence of competition. This is one-on-one, two players out there fighting each other with everything they have, trying to bring the best out of themselves. And the difference at this level of the game is all in the head and in the heart.

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.

Your game is only as good as your second serve

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