Love Quote by John Newcombe

“I had started my love affair with Wimbledon” turns a sporting milestone into a romantic origin story, and that’s exactly the point. John Newcombe isn’t describing a tournament so much as a relationship: the slow-burn attachment to a place that can elevate you, expose you, and keep pulling you back even after it’s hurt you. For an athlete, that language does strategic work. It reframes ambition as devotion, competition as intimacy. You don’t just win Wimbledon; you court it.

The subtext is how Wimbledon functions as tennis’s most loaded symbol. It’s not merely a venue but an institution with its own codes, rituals, and gatekeeping glamour: grass, whites, royalty, tradition. Calling it a “love affair” acknowledges both attraction and imbalance. Wimbledon doesn’t need Newcombe; Newcombe needs Wimbledon to become Newcombe. The phrase carries a quiet admission of vulnerability, even dependency, but it’s packaged as charm. That’s classic athlete mythmaking: you present pressure as passion, obsession as romance.

Context matters, too. Newcombe came up when the sport was straddling old amateur prestige and the emerging Open Era. Wimbledon was the stage where reputations became permanent, where a player could be transformed from talented to canonical. “Started” suggests a first encounter that changes the trajectory of a career - and a life - because Wimbledon isn’t just something you play. It’s something you keep chasing, long after the scoreboard stops being the only thing that counts.