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Paris - AFP looks at the best sports quotes from 2015:
Tennis
"I don't want to talk about how disappointing it is for me. If you have any other questions, I'm open for that."
- Serena Williams after her shock US Open semi-final loss to Roberta Vinci which ended her bid for a calendar Grand Slam.
"There was one time I was at the pizza joint in Palm Beach and I did fall and hit my neck and head. I don't know if that counts as one. I came to the next morning. Anyways, that was it. The pizza never fell. It was perched perfectly in my hand as I slept."
- Serena Williams after being asked if, like Eugenie Bouchard, she has ever suffered a concussion.
"Have you ever played tennis? You did? You probably weren't very good."
- Victoria Azarenka to a chair umpire in her first-round victory at the US Open.
"I didn't even get married in white."
- US women's player Bethanie Mattek-Sands complaining about Wimbledon dress code.
Cricket
"I have no personal issues with Amir, it's my personal opinion that I can't share the dressing room with someone who hurt my country's integrity."
- Pakistan batsman Mohammad Hafeez refusing to play in same Twenty20 team in Bangladesh with Mohammad Amir, the bowler who was jailed after being found guilty of spot-fixing on the Pakistan tour of England in 2010.
"He's still living off the fact that he coached a team that anyone, even my dog Jerry, could have coached to world domination."
- Ex-Australian Test captain Michael Clarke slams former coach John Buchanan, following the latter's criticism of his captaincy.
"We envisioned the future of having lost your first two games, but not by this much."
England captain Eoin Morgan after his team suffered a second humiliating loss at the World Cup.
Golf
"This has been the most unpleasant golf tournament I've seen in my life. I mean, the man who designed this golf course had to have had one leg shorter than the other."
- Golf legend Gary Player ranting at the very hilly Chambers Bay Golf Course in Washington State which hosted the 2015 US Open.
"It would be having a more open, honest relationship with my ex-wife."
- What Tiger Woods replied after being asked what he would change most in his life and career as he approaches 40 on December 30.
"Luckily, that amount of money doesn't sort of mean much to me anymore."
- Rory McIlroy talks about the possibility of winning the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus.
Football
"I'm a totally normal guy. I'm the Normal One."
- Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp as he faced the media for the first time when asked how he would describe himself, after Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho famously said he was "a special one" in his first press conference in English football in 2004.
"I am a mountain goat that keeps going and going and going, I cannot be stopped, I just keep going."
- Sepp Blatter before his reelection for a fifth term as FIFA president.
"That is someone who should be given the Nobel Peace Prize. His contribution to the global humanitarian sphere is colossal."
- Russian President Vladimir Putin on suspended FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, who is facing corruption allegations.
"I have pictured it a few times, but I have to say I never thought it would work out so well."
Carli Lloyd after scoring the fastest hat-trick in a World Cup final match in the first 15 minutes as the United States beat holders Japan 5-2 in the women's tournament.
"I wasn't happy with my medical staff because even if you are a medical doctor or secretary on the bench, you have to understand the game."
- Jose Mourinho blasts team doctor Eva Carneiro who left the club in September and is now seeking a claim for constructive dismissal.
"I'm not under pressure, the refugees are under pressure."
- Jose Mourinho refused to accept he was in the midst of a full-blown crisis.
"I feel like my work was betrayed."
- Jose Mourinho accuses his players of betraying him in a 2-1 defeat at Premier League leaders Leicester City, his final match before his sacking.
Rugby
"We talked about what we wanted to do at half-time. It must have been a terrible speech."
- Canada coach Kieran Crowley after his side fell to the biggest comeback in World Cup history, losing to Romania.
"It is like kissing your sister."
- Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer gives his view on the joy of having to play a third place playoff match.
"I had breakfast with my wife for the first time in a long time. At least I still think she's my wife, I don't know if she still thinks I'm her husband."
- Eddie Jones after Japan exit the World Cup.
Boxing
"You're boring and I want to get you out of the heavy-weight division. You have about as much charisma as my underpants. Zero."
- Tyson Fury before ending Wladimir Klitschko's four-year reign as undisputed world heavyweight champion.
Cycling
"If I change all the seconds for firsts, there's not a team that can pay me."
- Slovak cyclist Peter Sagan.
Athletics
"This whole case smells of a political hit job and nothing more."
- All-Russia Athletics Federation lawyer Artyom Patsev after a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report revealed rampant state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics.
"We don't deny that we have problems but they exist around the whole world; we have the same percent as all countries do."
- Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko on the WADA report which resulted in Russian athletes being suspended from international competition.
