“She’s 6-foot-3, and she walks up to me, and she’s not happy. She’s all itchy. She’s gotta play Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, and she has trouble beating her. She looks down at me, because she’s 6-foot-3, and I’m looking up at her, and she goes, ‘Just say something!,'” King, who famously stands 5-foot-4, recalled Wednesday in a video she posted to her X, formerly Twitter, account.
“And I went, ‘Pressure is a privilege and champions adjust.’ It just came out of my mouth like that. I never even thought of it, but I loved it.”
King joked afterwards that she doubted Davenport remembered the moment her “favorite” quote first , “but I certainly do.”
The 80-year-old’s recall was nearly flawless. Davenport later reposted the video to her own X account, and jokingly teased the tennis legend that she does, in fact, not only remember the moment. It also had a seminal impact on her career.
