TennisBalkan
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Who do you think is the most inspiring athlete and why?
Who do you think is the most inspiring athlete and why?
I played soccer mostof my life yet I don't think I have ever had any really inspairing athlete, I appreciate athlets in general and sometime I wish I was good as they are. However, it happend that I came across to watch some wheelchair tennis tournament (believe was the US OPEN)and I was just amazed by this athletes....like them there are many more in diffent sports.........so I look up to them
How so ?..........
Michael Vick
If you have to look to michael vick for inspiration you have issues.
I had no idea that Federer had a middle name.Roger M Federer , Michael Schumacher , Greg Luganis , Sachin Tendulkar, Kobe Bryant.
And you are also the most surprising slam winner, and the best forehand ever, the greatest tennis player man or woman and ...Me.
Because of my perfect technique while I swing the human racquet.
And my ability to lecture others as a condition of them hitting with me if they are worse than me which they inevitably are.
Me.
Because of my perfect technique while I swing the human racquet.
Me.
Because of my perfect technique while I swing the human racquet.
And my ability to lecture others as a condition of them hitting with me if they are worse than me which they inevitably are.
YOU, Sir, are a genius.You are a true inspiration. Even with the smallest head size on the human tour, you make it happen. In an era dominated with large head sizes and an emphasis on brute force, you use craft, grace, technique and precision to succeed. You sir, are a genius.
Lance Armstrong and James Blake. No explenations needed![]()
Borg, calm and cool?? The guy has never looked relaxed a day in his life, his coach Leonard Bergelin has said that he worried about his weight like an anorexic schoolgirl, and it seems rather likely he tried to take a fatal overdose when his investment in a clothing company tanked.
BORG STILL BOASTS THAT CALM EXTERIOR
By CINDY SHMERLER
Published: August 22, 1989
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When he was playing tennis, Bjorn Borg was known for never showing emotion on the court and rarely revealing any off it. Yet even now, seven years after he stopped playing the professional circuit, the man from Sweden who was the world's No. 1 player from 1978 to 1980 and a five-time Wimbledon champion continues to intrigue tennis fans: they follow every report of his behavior, from a mysterious alleged suicide attempt to assorted romantic difficulties to the recent financial troubles of his designer clothing line.
''I'm amazed that years after I stopped playing tennis, people still recognize me in restaurants and ask for my autograph,'' the 33-year-old Borg said recently as he sat on a sofa in the New York office of his design-group company. ''I feel very proud of that.'' Relaxed Demeanor
Borg seemed relaxed and confident as he spoke and sipped coffee, quite a departure from the portrait painted of him after he was rushed to a hospital in Milan, Italy, last February for either a suicide attempt, a drug overdose or food poisoning, depending upon the source. And while he was given the chance, in an interview, to expound on a variety of subjects, it was clear Borg really wanted to discuss only one. ''You mean, the night I was supposed to kill myself?'' he asked, laughing.
Jimmy Connors, who continues to play at 36, reflected on Borg`s exodus in Tennis Magazine five years ago:
``There`s a big difference between walking down a hallway and having a guy say, `There`s Connors, he used to be a great player`, and the experience of walking out of a tunnel onto a court with 15,000 fans going crazy for you. What I can`t understand is that Borg made this decision at 26. Geez, the only way to fill all those long days ahead is by being something like a rancher or a farmer. But who`s going to do that after being at the top of tennis.``
Oh. Borg denied trying to kill himself. Not surprising. The hospital report at the time was of a large number of ingested barbiturates, and he was described as despondent at the time. Patients hospitalized with overdoses routinely tell everyone it was a stomach disorder, in my own clinical experience. My bet would be suicide attempt.
Loredana Berte, a 39-year-old rock singer, was rushed to a Milan hospital today after swallowing barbiturates. Doctors pumped her stomach and that her life was not in danger.
Earlier this week, Berte had called Italian journalists at Monte Carlo in an agitated state about reports the marriage was on the rocks. She was said to have been particularly upset about a photo in a French magazine showing the Swedish player in the company of a young woman.
Would you guys please stop slandering Borg with facts.
He is a perfect legend and that is how I prefer to think of him, thank you very much.
His life in retirement has been more checkered than his Hall of Fame career, which included 11 Grand Slam titles. When his name has made headlines, it often has been for the wrong reasons.
Using his old wooden rackets, he made a halfhearted comeback attempt in the early 1990s, losing several matches to lowly ranked players before retiring to the senior circuit.
In business, his eponymous fashion label hit financial difficulties and was liquidated in 1990. The company relaunched in 1991. There were two divorces, including a turbulent second marriage to Italian rock singer Loredana Berte, plus an ugly custody battle with the mother of his eldest son, Robin.
In 1989, Borg's name was splashed in the news for an accidental drug overdose that some reports claimed was a suicide attempt. Borg denied those reports, saying he had taken sleeping pills after a bout of food poisoning.
The one-time prodigy, whose ultra-focused tennis existence was orchestrated down to the minute by omnipresent coach Lennart Bergelin, admits he had no blueprint when he left the game in 1982 after several months on hiatus.
"The only plan was that I know I'm going to step away from tennis," Borg says.
"I just wanted to learn about this other life from tennis. I learned about all kinds of different things — good things, bad things."
Bergelin, now 80, whom Borg says is "like a second father to me," knew how dedicated his man was to the sport and how difficult the transition would be: "It's normal that in the beginning it was not easy. He was not prepared to change from tennis."
^^I could care less what the "facts" are in this episode.
Borg is a very inspiring athlete to many including myself.
His personal life wasn't perfect. "Perfect" people are rather dull anyway, don't you think?
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
^^Nice post.
I really didn't start playing tennis until ~10 yrs. ago. I was a runner growing up, so my "heros" in those formative years were people like Steve Prefontaine and (the above mentioned) Haile Gebrselassie.
I once mentioned Prefontaine here in a running thread and was told he was vastly overrated or he was news only in America.Very good r2473. That's interesting. I've heard about Steve Prefontaine who died young, but was very famous. It says here that he inspired the "running boom" of the 1970's, held a ton of records and that he died sadly a year before the '76 Olympics. He must have been sensational.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xesXzetlrE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NDAydXCoxI&feature=fvst
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Prefontaine
I once mentioned Prefontaine here in a running thread and was told he was vastly overrated or he was news only in America.
I thought it was Bill Rogers and Frank Shorter who inspired a lot of runners. I used to read the Runner's World in those days.