Motivation Quote by Richard Krajicek

There is a quiet provocation in the way Krajicek calls a strength a "weakness". In tennis, return games are supposed to be a grind, a tax you pay to get back to your own serve. For a big server like Krajicek, the cultural script says: hold easily, steal a break if you can, win the tie-break, repeat. By labeling elite returning as a flaw, he’s admitting how his identity as a player was built around expectation as much as technique. When you exceed the archetype, you also disrupt your own map of risk: you start pressing for breaks, you take bigger cuts, you invite volatility because the game now offers more opportunities than your instincts were trained to manage.

The second sentence reveals the real engine: psychological compression. Serving well is baseline dominance; breaking "these other guys" adds humiliation and uncertainty. It’s not just scoreboard math, it’s narrative control. If an opponent thinks, "At least I can get to his second serve", and then you erase that refuge, you force them to play every service game like it’s a crisis. Krajicek is describing a feedback loop: his returning creates pressure, pressure tightens their swings, tighter swings donate short balls, and suddenly his serve becomes even more untouchable because the opponent is already emotionally behind.

Contextually, this is late-90s grass-court logic: fast surfaces, premium on first-strike tennis, and a mental arms race. He’s explaining how dominance isn’t merely hitting bigger; it’s making the other guy feel like there’s nowhere left to breathe.