Tennis...They said it

• Our nominee for the 2003 rec.sport.tennis "You knowy" awards is Kim Clijsters, for this classic paragraph from her June 5 interview at the French Open: "I don't know. You know, I know that in a lot of Grand Slams I think, you know, women's tennis, you know, I mean if you watch -- you know, I'm in the committee of the WTA and, you know, we get a lot of the results back from the Grand Slams and stuff. And, you know, women's tennis, at the moment, I think is a little bit more popular I think, if you compare them to, you know, whatever, TV ratings and stuff like that.So, yeah, I don't know what the real reason is. I think we're just, you know, I think we have a lot of, you know, personalties, I think, on the women's tour - so much different type of games, different types of personalties, and I think that's what makes it so interesting."
• Serena Williams, asked in 2001 after her loss to Jennifer Capriati in the Wimbledon quarter-finals, what she thought "hypochondriac" meant after using it in a sentence, replied, "Someone that is always -- that is prone to get sick, prone to get hurt and injured, more prone than the next individual. That's me. That's Serena Williams. Under hypochondriac, they should put 'Serena Williams.'"
• A key point in the ever-changing nationality of Jelena Dokic wwas the Australian Open 2001, when she and her father announced she would resume Yugoslavian citizenship after accusing Australian officials of rigging the draw against her by putting her up against defending champion and top player Lindsay Davenport. Dokic duly lost and left the country.
• Lindsay Davenport, speaking of Venus Williams's late withdrawal citing a wrist injury from the Sanex WTA Tour Championships in Munich, in October 2001: "I think it was wrong because she left it so late after saying many times that she would be coming." A week later, Davenport pulled out of the Championships final at the last minute with a bruised knee.
• "Sie is ein halber-Mann [She is half man]," said Martina Hingis at the 1999 Australian Open (her last Grand Slam win, incidentally) of French player Amelie Mauresmo, who had recently come out as a lesbian. Hingis later denied the comment, though German journalists said they had it on tape; either way, the widespread report surely fueled the angry booing of the French crowds when she turned into a melted-down brat while playing Graf a few months later in the French final (Graf won in three sets, and retired a month later).
• Andre Agassi, speaking of newly crowned number one Pete Sampras, back in April 1993, "I don't think the World Number One should be somebody who looks like he just swung from a tree." A slightly different memory of this quote used to be here

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