"I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis"
About this Quote
The subtext is constraint. Agassi is admitting limits without making a spectacle of them. Whether it’s age, an injury, a brutal opponent, or just the grind of a long tournament, the sentence quietly concedes: I can’t outgun everyone all the time. So I’ll outthink them. That’s a veteran’s pivot from raw dominance to controlled risk, from constant aggression to selective violence. “Have to” is the tell; this isn’t a preference, it’s necessity.
“Play great tennis” is the deceptively simple closer, almost banal, which is why it works. Greatness here isn’t romantic; it’s operational. It means clean patterns, disciplined margins, first-serve percentage, returning with intent, refusing the cheap error. In Agassi’s era, when power baseliners were turning points into drag races, his brand was early ball-striking and ruthless efficiency. The quote frames that identity as a survival tactic: you don’t beat the modern game by being louder, you beat it by being smarter at the exact seconds that matter.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sports |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Agassi, Andre. (2026, January 17). I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-going-to-have-to-pick-my-shots-and-play-great-37993/
Chicago Style
Agassi, Andre. "I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-going-to-have-to-pick-my-shots-and-play-great-37993/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-going-to-have-to-pick-my-shots-and-play-great-37993/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.




