Originally posted by klacr
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From the mouth of a babe. Not really. Kyle was a babe maybe in 1984. He may not even have been a twinkle in his father's eye. But...he understands. Kyle gets it. With tennis teachers like Kyle...the game will be in good hands.
Kyle grew up with Edberg and Becker. My father grew up with Laver, Rosewall, Hoad and Gonzales. I never grew up...it was McEnroe that had me spellbound. He and Connors and Borg.
You saw the match. You read what I had to say. McEnroe played splendidly. There is only one problem. Connors was cheated. Right in front of everyone and nobody said a peep. What a shame. This is what our sport came down to. One of the greatest champions of all time...one of the greatest tennis players of all time was cheated right out in front of everyone on center court in the finals of the 1984 Men's Singles Championships and nobody said boo. What a pity.
On a lesser level...I felt the same sting as James Scott Connors did on the afternoon at Wimbledon. I don't think that I was alone either. There must have been many that felt the same sense of outrage...the same sense of inequality during those times in the tennis world. When the smart money made a decision for the masses. When the royalty once again took matters into their control without consent or even approval. The decision was all dollars and cents. Tradition be damned.
Jimmy Connors refused to speak to Bud Collins after his 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 defeat at the hands of John McEnroe. Connors didn't even have a snowballs chance in hell against a younger opponent, at least as equally talented and who was using a racquet that was conservatively 14% bigger with state of the art graphite than his own antique Wilson T2000 made of stone age steel. It leads me to wonder...what were his motivations? The only thing that I can come up with is his reverence to the game. He worshipped those hallowed grounds of Wimbledon where he had been defined as a person and as a man. The new equipment struck him as sacrilegious...although he had the Wilson Pro Staff in the works. He just hadn't brought himself to use it yet. A blasphemy that his soul could not endure.
Psychologically we have this much on Connors. He was utterly devoted to both his mother and his grandmother. He has been married forever to Patti Maguire...they have two sons together. Whatever one might say about Jimmy Connors and his on court behavior or his public personna...privately he was a devoted man. Fiercely so...in a way that few of us can identify with. Most of us capitulate at the first sign of something better...ready to leave the past behind. The grass is always greener.
On McEnroe's side...it was the only thing to do. In the middle of his meteoric career it was the prudent thing to do. Not to lose anything of importance by being cheated out of it by a disparity in equipment. Once the players that had enough talent to make up the difference between theirs and Johnny's by switching to space age tennis racquets it was time for John McEnroe to make the switch. This is the genius of McEnroe...he didn't like it for sure. That much is for certain as he too grew up with traditional values and wood racquets...but he was forced to do it. The year before this championship he had met Chris Lewis, an unseeded New Zealander who had "cheated" his way to the men's singles final using the ultimate blasphemy in sports...the Prince Graphite. Nick Bolletieri was pimping the same racquet in a commercial during the 1984 Wimbledon.
Who was complicit in this travesty of justice? Well that is hard to say...but one has only to follow the money. But you can put Bud Collins and Dick Enberg on that list...and certainly McEnroe as well. Everyone as a matter of fact...which is not exactly a letter of recommendation for the species. The human species. It is survival of the fittest in the end...do whatever it is necessary to get a leg up on the competition. Bud Collins made only one remark about the equipment during the whole match and that is when he exclaimed...”McEnroe’s serve is just devastating, it practically tore through that steel racquet of Jimmy Connors”. This is the first and only mention of the Connors bucket of bolts equipment at 36.22 in the video...”the old style racquet that he has been using since 1967”, he continues. It was obvious that there was more than one reason for the disparity in the performance of the two American lefties.
In 1974...a mere ten years earlier at Wimbledon...Jimmy Connors used the same Wilson T2000 to bludgeon the diminutive "Muscles" aka Ken Rosewall in the finals 6-1, 6-1, 6-4. Ironically ten years later he was on the other end of the stick with McEnroe. 1984 was the year that tennis would turn the corner and classic tennis was replaced by "shock and awe" tennis with the ushering in of such speed demons as Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and Pete Sampras. I saw it from the beginning...in the first days as a competitor playing against players of inferior talent with bigger racquets. The overemphasis of speed and exaggerated spin. This is what we are left with today. Forehands...forehands...forehands. Stotty says that the forehands of today are superior to those of yesterday. But what of the subtlety...volleys, serve and volley, half-volleys, touch shots, service tactics. Extinct as the dinosaurs.
Tennis Etiquette was in vogue for many years as the commandment to live by when conducting yourself on the tennis court. Never take unfair advantage of an opponent. In the mid 1970's the decision was made to dispense with that nonsense and the Bad Boy's started to appear on the scene. The authorities sort of let the side show escalate and one wonders in hindsight whether it was on purpose to serve as a distraction from where the real crime was being committed.
By 1984 Björn Borg had been chased from the game by the equipment. Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl stood alone using the standard equipment of the past. It is no coincidence that they were on the top looking down...they were the big guns, the head honchos in the tennis world. They were the last to need the "help" of the oversized racquets.
There is a huge story in the 1984 Wimbledon Men's Singles Championships. These are the things that I see...and nobody else talks about. A history lesson for those too young to remember it. A lesson for all of us when it comes to trusting the authorities. In the end...McEnroe had it right. He flipped them off at every occasion. He felt obligated...to the past.
Speaking of the past...if anyone out there feels that modern tennis compares to the classic of say the year 1974 take a look at this.
If you are old enough to be familiar with the names in the draw of 1974 then you know the obvious. Each and everyone of the players in the 1974 draw knew how to play tennis. There weren't any one trick ponies back them. If you had a weakness in your game opponents picked up on it and exploited it. Mainly because the game was slower...because that is the way it was meant to be played. But I wouldn't be fooled if I was you about the speed. These guys were plenty quick and tough. Take a look at the doubles draw sheet as well. These guys were all playing the doubles as well. Connors was playing with fellow "bad boy" Ille Nastase and Björn Borg made his maiden appearance at Wimbledon...in the doubles that year. Even 40 year old Ken Rosewall was playing in the doubles. So much for the modern day "tough guy" tennis players. Plus they weren't in the habit of ordering the ball boys and girls around the court to fetch them a damn towel every time they wanted to towel off. I feel sort of bad for the modern day tennis aficionado's...they really don't know what they are missing.
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