Since he has been 15 he has been with us and he is very lucky, he and Pat get on really well together, so I think that -- don't you? You hate the little bugger, do you, just because he says "you know" all the time, I mean, you don't have to hate him. Just because he calls you bad names. [John Newcombe on Pat and Lleyton]

''You are my Rafter. My only Rafter. You make me happy when skies are gray. Please don't take my Rafter away.'' [To the tune of ''You are my sunshine,'']

Wonder if the latest issue of GQ has made it to Oz yet? Rafter has appeal for a number of reasons, some of them having nothing to do with physical attributes. First, Australians are to America what Mickey Rourke is to France. Inexplicably, we reflexively embrace everything from the Outback Steakhouse, to Crocodile Dundee, to the Little River Band to Mel Gibson. Jeez, even Yahoo Serious got his 15 minutes here.) Second, Rafter, for all his success, is a cool guy who doesn't take himself too seriously and betrays zip attitude. Probably because he came up through the ranks playing quallies and satellites and not cruising down wild-card boulevard. Third -- and, unfortunately, least significant -- in a sport flush with atomic servers and power hitters, Rafter's classicist game is a throwback to another era. [Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim]

New heartthrob: Hands down, it's Patrick Rafter. "Ohmigod that's one I'd
chase and tackle and drag home," said one admirer.

``I think he's got a thing about Pat, and I suspect it could be that when they play in tournaments in America, that Pat gets more support than he does. No doubt about it, if the first match on the third day is still alive it will be a real humdinger. There's going to be a lot of electricity flying across the court, apart from tennis balls. I'm not saying they hate each other, but there's something there.''
[ John Newcombe, in refernce to Pete's attitude towards Pat]

When tennis player Patrick Rafter admitted that he was drunk during the "dead rubber", the last match in a Davis Cup tie which Australia had already won, a lot of people were outraged.  Former champion Ken Rosewall commented:  "I think it's been done before by players in that situation but I think it hasn't generally been acknowledged ...it's been kept private..."
In other words, in previous times hypocrisy ruled:  privately people did one thing, publicly they pretended something else.  Rafter's main crime wasn't being drunk; it was being honest.

``I don't think that Pat or the companies he's associated with are really looking at it from a financial viewpoint. But in terms of potential, he would go to another level where many companies do aspire to being associated with No.1 in whatever sport they are involved in. So it does certainly broaden his horizons even further. Pat is the hottest marketing property this country's 
seen in a long, long time.''
-Mimis, a ProServ vice-president

"When you see his slice, you think, "OK, I can hit that.' It's going so slowly, it's like my mother is hitting the ball," 
[ Felix Mantilla on Patrick Rafter's slice backhand]

"Do you wear boxers or briefs?"

Pete Sampras on a possible budding rivalry with Australian Patrick Rafter:
"It's not going to happen in one match. If I play Patrick over the next number of years in big matches like this, that has a possibility. But we'll just see over the next couple of years." 

Q: How did you feel you played? Did you feel you were playing really well and just couldn't touch him anyway? 
A: Not well really, but I still thought that I played some good tennis in the beginning. I started off pretty good. I sort of didn't make my returns like I normally do. Normally, I have much more winners. But it was hard to control in the wind. I didn't manage to get back to the normal situation of making more returns, and have much more use of it than I had today. [JONAS BJORKMAN after losing to Pat 1998 US OPEN]

Jonas Bjorkman, after being asked if Patrick Rafter had changed since winning the U.S. Open last year:
"Not at all. That's why he's still doing so good. TAustralian mentality is so different. I think the Swedish mentality is different. Some countries are having a problem that the guy is getting cocky. But that's not going to happen with an Australian, a Swedish guy or a Dutch guy. We are totally different in that way. That's not going to happen." 

"This young man is very special and knowing his  wonderful parents and brother I can 
understand why they  are all the very best of the best! " 
-Nick Boletteri's profile of Rafter 

"a one Slam wonder." 
-John McEnroe commenting on Rafter 

"The game of tennis needs people like Rafter. Frankly he's too popular and too good looking a guy not to have around." 
-John McEnroe on the decline of men's tennis 

He may still sport the same long, curly locks that drive women mad the world over, but Australian Patrick Rafter is not the same player he was  when he reached the Roland Garros semifinals a year ago. 
-Matther Cronin 

 Sampras has been saying for years that he just wants respect and recognition as a good player and a good bloke who sticks up for tennis tradition, yet this upstart Rafter is congratulated for all this after one grand slam. Chang is a hard sell outside Asia. Agassi’s  heartthrob image is in bad need of a makeover. Rafter is eminently marketable. He has no competition in the looker stakes. He has reintroduced good old sex appeal to men’s tennis (remember Bjorn Borg, Vitas Gerulaitis and Guillermo Vilas – men who actually tried to appeal to women?). Rafter attracts thousands through the turnstiles, mostly of the young and female variety, he sells shirts and shoes, he draws tv viewers. 
[ya hear that!? ya hear that!? hehehe :D ] 

Sports Illustrated tagged him ‘the Australian dreamboat Pat Rafter’. 

American writer Gene Scott raved: “If tennis can’t market Rafter as the game’s 
next headliner, the game doesn’t deserve him. His smooth bronze face punctuated by dark eyes is matinee idol material.”

Distinguished tennis writer Richard Evans wrote: “He will quickly become the kind of open, charming, sexy superstar the game so badly needs.” 

"He's as nice as he is smoldering," says CBS and HBO commentator Mary Carillo.

"Patrick is a naturally built athlete, but he's a little bowlegged."- Pat's coach Gary Stickler

"He looks like a Samuri warriour with that ponytail." - Patrick McEnroe and Cliff Drysdale

"Yes he is the man. My 17 year old daughter is all excited to be coming down here next weekend, not to see me but this guy."
- Cliff Drysdale

"Yes..he's popular with all the teenagers, this guy Patrick Rafter. They're all comng to see him." - Patrick McEnroe 

back to top