The Outsider: A Memoir (18 page)

In my first and only full WCT season, I made it through to the finals in Dallas, a classy event where all the seats were sold out. I played Dick Stockton and was lucky to escape with a four-set victory. I later played in two more WCT finals, both against a young, curly-haired, bandana-wearing left-hander from New York with a bad attitude, winning in 1980 and losing in 1984. We’ll come to him in a minute.

But I’ll always have great memories of that first final in 1977. It was a standout year for me, a year when the WCT and Lamar Hunt were, for a brief, happy moment, the future of tennis.

Just when you’re not expecting it, your life changes dramatically. In May 1977, I met the only true competition for my love of tennis.

Spencer and I had been invited to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion for the filming of an ABC special to celebrate the Playmate of the Year. When he asked me if I was planning to attend, I said, “Are you crazy? Of course I’m going.”

I’d been to previous events at the mansion—the Midsummer Night’s Dream Party, a Halloween Party, various boxing matches—each one more elaborate than the last. Other times I stopped by just to enjoy the scenery, you know, strolling through his private zoo . . . checking out his video-game room . . . Who am I kidding? I went there because he had the biggest collection of beautiful women in the world.

And this time, Hef pulled out all the stops. There were cocktail waiters in tuxedos, gorgeous women, champagne flowing, gorgeous women . . .

After an hour or so of hanging out, seeing old friends and making new ones, I gathered with all the guests at the foot of the stairs for the presentation of the Playmate of the Year. With the cameras rolling, Hef, dressed, as always, in his silk bathrobe and pajamas, and holding his trusty pipe, announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your Playmate of the Year 1977, Miss Patti McGuire.”

And there she was. The
life-
changer. The last thing I was looking for and the end of my life as I knew it.

She walked down the stairs and was given a huge bouquet of roses from . . . is that Alice Cooper? I hardly recognized him without his makeup.

Patti was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. All I could do was stare at her. “Hi, Mom and Dad,” she said. “I want to thank Hef, because if he hadn’t invented the Playmate, none of us would be here. I’d like to thank Pompeo Posar, my photographer, because I love him. Thank you, everyone.”

And that was it. She walked into the crowd and I followed her. I knew I had some fierce competition, but that’s never stopped me before. I approached her and tried to stay as cool as possible.

“Congratulations,” I said, “and I think it was really nice of you to remember your parents.”

“Thank you,” she said before she turned and walked away. Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

I looked at Spencer.

“I guess we can go now,” I said.

Later, Patti would tell me that her girlfriend Deborah Svensk had a crush on me, and she didn’t want to complicate their friendship.

I wouldn’t see Patti McGuire again for a year.

It’s Wimbledon 1977, my first Grand Slam of the year, and London is buzzing on and off the court. At the same time that Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her Silver Jubilee, the All-England Club is marking its centenary, with a parade before the opening match featuring 42 of the 52 surviving past singles champions.

There are British flags flying almost everywhere you look, and a strong whiff of patriotism is in the air. This is not a good time to piss off the locals.

On the Saturday before the start of the tournament, I’m hitting with John Newcombe and Lornie Kuhle on a private grass court at the home where Newcombe is staying. It’s wet, and I wouldn’t normally risk playing under these conditions but I’m short on grass-court practice.

Newk serves to my backhand, and as I set myself for the return, the ball skids off the damp grass, forcing me to readjust my grip at the last minute. As I’m about to hit the shot, my right hand slips and my thumb catches in the prongs of my open-throated T2000. When I make contact with the ball, my thumb is jerked back hard.

“Shit! I think I’ve broken my fucking thumb!”

I try hitting for a minute or two, but it’s no use. My thumb is turning black.

“You need a doctor, Jimmy,” Lornie says.

We go to St. George’s Hospital, on Hyde Park Corner, where they X-ray my hand. When the technician comes out with the results he is both smiling and shaking his head.

“Well Mr. Connors, I’m glad I didn’t have a fiver on you to win the title. Your thumb is broken. There’s going to be no Wimbledon for you this year, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks,” I say, “but don’t fucking bet on it.”

I returned to the hotel to stick my hand in ice, and early the next morning I was back at St George’s to try and figure out a solution. By now my thumb was swollen and throbbing. It hurt like hell and I was having trouble holding on to the racquet, let alone gripping it tight enough to deal with the speed and the unreliable bounce of Wimbledon’s grass courts.

The doc put a splint on my thumb so that it was sticking out at an angle away from the racquet. Lornie and I then went off to the practice courts to hit some balls. The splint was uncomfortable, but what bothered me most was the clicking of the metal bandage against my metal T2000. Looking back, I should have left it alone; the noise could have driven my opponents crazy.

After half an hour of practice, it was clear that the splint wasn’t working.

“Shit, Lornie, we’re going to have to go back. I know it’s never going to be a hundred percent, but if he can change the splint even a little, it might help.”

Back at the hospital, the doc put a cotton sleeve over the metal splint, and an hour later Lornie and I were back on the court.

“How’s it feel now, Jimmy?”

“Better, but still not right. At least the clicking sound is gone.”

This went on all day, back and forth between the court and hospital until it was too dark to play.

“Jimmy,” the doctor said to me on our last visit of the day (by now we were on a first-name basis), “I think I can see a way to tweak the splint some more. I’ll work on it tonight. Come back first thing in the morning to pick it up.”

“Thanks but I’m playing tomorrow, so if we don’t fix it by lunchtime, I’m screwed.”

I’m almost the first one on the practice courts at Wimbledon the next day, trying out the latest version of my splint. It’s an improvement, but it’s still not right. I can’t control my shots like I know I’ll have to.

I call the doc from the pay phone by the locker room and tell him what I think the problem is.

“Can you bring a new one over here? I’m really sorry. I don’t think I can make it to your office and back again before I’m due on court. The centenary parade is at one o’clock. I’ve got to be there.”

Two hours later, I see Lornie running toward me. He’s been over at the gates waiting to meet the doctor so he can bring him to the practice courts. He’s alone.

“You’re not going to believe this, Jimmy. They won’t let him in! He doesn’t have a ticket!”

I look at my watch. 12:30. Shit.

“I tried to explain to the security guys, but they won’t listen.”

I run over to the fence, where the doctor hands me the new splint.

“Jimmy, go hit a few balls. Quickly. See how it feels.”

Now I’m really beginning to sweat. On my way back I run into Nasty. He’s heading in the opposite direction, to Centre Court, where the big parade of past champions starts in 20 minutes.

“Nasty, I need your help.”

“But Jimmy, we . . .”

“Give me a minute, son. I need you to hit with me.”

He agrees and pushes me pretty hard. My thumb feels OK. Not perfect, but good enough.

12:55. I race back to the doc, who’s waiting by the fence.

“Thanks. It’ll get me through my match. Tomorrow we can work on it some more.”

I arrive at the entrance to Centre Court too late. I’ve missed my place in the parade by a few minutes. Only 41 surviving champions receive a medal from the Duke of Kent. But I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be missed, even though I’m the top seed this year. And an official at the door confirms it for me.

“It’s no big deal, Jimmy,” he says.

Man, was he ever wrong.

The booing starts the second I walk out onto Centre Court. I’m the third match that afternoon, and word has obviously traveled fast around the grounds. Even people who weren’t at the parade have heard about me standing up the Duke of Kent, and they all seem to agree. Connors not only thinks he’s better than 7 Up; he thinks he’s better than royalty.

I’ve pissed off the locals. Good work, Jimmy.

To make matters worse, I’m playing a Brit, Richard Lewis, in the first round. Being the villain doesn’t worry me; I like it, as you’ve probably gathered by now, but even by my own low standards it’s clear this match is going to be brutal. Better just get it over with.

Lewis serves the first point of the match. I get ready to return it. Backhand. This is the first real test of my thumb, and the grass is still damp. Can’t worry about any of that now.

BOOF! Lewis’s serve shoots off the wet grass at a weird angle and flies right into my crotch, and the pain in my thumb is now nothing compared with the pain in my nuts. Down I go. I’m on my knees and 15,000 people jump to their feet to cheer and clap. Jeez! You would have thought that a Brit had just won Wimbledon instead of just nearly neutering me.

I win the match with nuts the size of grapefruits, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
Take that
, I think as I go and sit in a bucket of ice.

The next day I went back to St. George’s for a tweak on the splint and that was the end of it. I never mentioned it again and no one seemed to notice.

That was the good news. The bad news was that the press went into a full tabloid frenzy when I didn’t make the parade, and the prissy Wimbledon authorities called me into the principal’s office, once again, to tell me how much they didn’t appreciate my bad manners. Come on, guys, it’s not like I looked up the Queen’s skirt. I was just doing everything I could to fulfill my obligation to you people as a professional tennis player. So back off!

I’m still seething as I’m being driven back to my hotel. We’re waiting at a traffic light when a guy in a truck honks his horn at us.

“Connors, hey! Jimmy Connors!” he shouts.

Here we go. This is all I need, some asshole about to give me a hard time. I roll down the window, ready to launch a few verbal missiles. And he says in his Cockney accent, “Nice one, Connors. Fuck the Duke!” and sticks out his middle finger.

My kind of guy.

Seriously, I know the All-England Club is a stickler for rules, but let’s put the blame where it should be: All the Club had to do was to allow the doctor to enter its hallowed grounds for five minutes. I would have had my emergency splint, I would have made the centenary parade, the truck driver wouldn’t have flipped off the Duke, and none of this would have been an issue. But then again, where’s the fun in that? It would have left the All-England Club with nothing to complain about.

There was a kid from New York making some noise at Wimbledon that year. He’d come through qualifying and upset some top players: Sandy Mayer in the fourth round, Phil Dent in the quarters. I never met him, never even saw him play, I didn’t know anything about his game, but during those two weeks in London I was starting to hear his name.

John Patrick McEnroe. My semifinal opponent.

The first time I ever laid eyes on McEnroe was in the men’s locker room at Wimbledon, minutes before we walked out onto Centre Court. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy with a headband. I had to ask myself, how the hell did he even qualify? I’d been in his shoes five years ago at the Pacific Southwest tournament, about to play the great Aussie champion Roy Emerson. I had nothing to lose that day, and Roy had everything. Now the roles were reversed and I wasn’t going to give this up-and-comer an inch. If I could rattle him, I would.

He came up to me and introduced himself. I grabbed my bag and racquets and walked past him—no smile, no hello, no handshake, no acknowledgement of his existence. I’m nothing if not gracious.

It didn’t take me long to figure out this skinny kid was probably going to be around for a while. But that was OK; I knew how to deal with guys like McEnroe; I’d played Nastase long enough. It didn’t matter if it was his tennis or his attitude, I had to be ready. But he was still a handful. His game and his shot-making ability were impressive, and I had to do everything I could that day to win the match in four sets. It was clear to me right then that this young talent would be a force to be reckoned with in years to come. He wanted what I already had, and I understood that, but I also knew he was going to have to fight me for it.

After I got rid of McEnroe, only Björn Borg stood in the way of my second Wimbledon title.

I had a good record against Borg going into that final, and although he was the defending champion, I was confident I had the game to beat him on grass, a surface that we had never competed on. Borg was a very good grass player—don’t get me wrong. His run of five consecutive Wimbledon titles, including one against McEnroe when Mac was the best in the world on the surface, proves that. He was superfast and never missed a ball. But he wasn’t invincible. None of us were.

Borg should have lost to Mark Edmondson in the second round in 1977, when he was two sets down. A year later, in a first-round match, Victor Amaya was leading him two sets to one, and again in 1979 Vijay Amritraj had match points against Borg but failed to convert them. What was going on? Was Borg bored playing all those early-round matches and had lost interest? Maybe, but then something would happen; he’d get a lucky break, or his opponent would relax and let him back into it by playing a careless shot, and you could imagine Borg thinking, “Screw it, I may as well give it a go.” He had a reputation of being ice-cold, but I never bought that. Everybody feels something on the inside, whether they show it or not.

Borg had one big advantage on grass—his underrated volley. It was soft, and he didn’t bury you when he was at the net. Normally that would be a weakness, but not in the second week of Wimbledon, because by then all the serve-and-volley guys—and there were a lot of them—would have bruised (that’s tennis talk for tearing up the grass) the section of court between the service line and the net. Exactly where Borg’s short volleys would land and die instantly. That was tough to play against.