Days of Grace (12 page)

Physically unprepossessing, even a little frail, Connors nevertheless wore an air of such arrogance that he regularly intimidated his opponents even before he had hit a ball. Then he proceeded to smack the ball with a force that bordered on vindictiveness. His two-handed backhand shot from midcourt, when he had time to play it well, was among the most damaging strokes ever seen in tennis. It rivaled the famed two-handed forehand shot of Pancho Segura, who was once a mentor to Connors. Jimmy’s return of serve was unbridled aggression. His overhead smashes were awkward but decisive. And in his prime he never seemed to tire, much less become despondent on the court. His heart was always in it, and his readiness to fight never left him.

His career was also unusual. In the early 1970s, his clever manager at the time, Bill Riordan, had created an entire mini-circuit around Connors, with the immensely gifted but always mercurial Rumanian player Die Nastase as his comic counterpart. Then, in 1974, Connors launched his first major attack on the tennis citadels of the world. That year, he won Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open.

As a player, I admired him. In other ways, Connors disturbed me. He refused to join the ATP even though he, like all the professionals, profited from its labors. He never
helped in our ongoing struggles with the national and international governing bodies. He seemed to care little for what most people expected of him—or his advisers didn’t care, and he was loyal to them. Above all, I never did understand his refusal to play Davis Cup tennis. There had never been an American player of his caliber who, when asked, had consistently refused. Jimmy’s stand had antagonized a number of us, including not only the USTA but also players like Stan Smith and Charlie Pasarell, who had grown up with different ideas.

Actually, I considered the Davis Cup his Achilles’ heel, because it raised questions about his patriotism. In 1975, choosing my words carefully, I commented that James Scott Connors was “seemingly unpatriotic” in refusing to play for his country. Connors was outraged. Just before the start of Wimbledon that year, he filed a libel suit against me, requesting damages from the court in the amount of millions of dollars. Obviously Connors considered himself to be a
very
patriotic fellow. After I defeated him in the singles final at Wimbledon that year, he quietly dropped the suit.

Now, six years later, he was ready to play under me for his country. He seemed not to have forgotten his defeat at the hands of Ramirez and Mexico. “I’d like to help the team win the Cup back,” he announced. “Being on a winning Davis Cup team is important to me, because I haven’t done that.”

In July, at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, we met Czechoslovakia, the defending champions, in the quarterfinals. Connors agreed to play the second match, against Tomas Smid. McEnroe would play the first, against Lendl, who was then ranked number four in the world. Smith and Lutz would play doubles against Lendl and Smid. A more formidable tennis team had never before represented the United States. Davis Cup tickets, once difficult to sell, suddenly became precious.

Unfortunately, unlike at Carlsbad, McEnroe arrived at Flushing Meadows with his nerves sorely frayed and his emotions drained. The previous Saturday, he had won
Wimbledon by defeating Borg. However, he had behaved so execrably during various matches that the Wimbledon committee had fined him $2,250. It had also threatened, in scathing language, to levy an additional $12,500 in fines and to suspend him from playing in the future. The British press had treated him savagely. Then, in some respects the most shocking punishment came later in the week, after his victory. For the first time in the history of Wimbledon, the club refused to grant honorary membership to a reigning singles champion.

I myself would have been devastated by this highly personal form of censure and ostracism. Although John was less affected than I would have been, he was definitely not elated at the news. He was an unhappy young man, hardly ready now to launch himself against powerful Czechoslovakia, when he joined us in New York for the Davis Cup tie.

In the first match, under a fiery July sun and before 17,445 fans, the largest home crowd for a Davis Cup match in American history, McEnroe lost to Lendl. John’s usually lethal serve never locked onto its target and his volleys were often tentative, while Lendl was muscular and imposing. McEnroe behaved impeccably, but good manners were not enough; they seldom are. He lost in three sets: 6–4, 14–12, 7–5. (In those days, tiebreakers were not used in Davis Cup play.) “I wanted to do well,” he explained afterward, a little plaintively. “I tried. It’s hard to explain. In retrospect, I wish we didn’t have to play this particular week.… The mental thing of the last couple of weeks wore me out.”

Connors, perhaps not entirely displeased that McEnroe had lost, proceeded to smash Smid 6–3, 6–1, 6–2. “Knowing John lost made me go out a little more eager, a little more up,” he told
The New York Times
. Of course, he avoided any suggestion that he had wanted to show up McEnroe. “I didn’t want to end the day 0–2, especially on Arthur’s birthday.”

The next day, Smith and Lutz crushed Lendl and Smid in
straight sets. Only once in the match did an American lose a game on his serve.

On Sunday, McEnroe returned to form. He also stayed on his best behavior. The crowd, most of whom must have been his fellow New Yorkers, cheered his every point. Intimidated before the first ball was served, Smid did not put up much of a fight. McEnroe’s mastery was such that in the last two sets, he lost only two points on his serve. “I try my best,” Smid groaned, “but he’s too good for me.”

With that victory, we won the tie and ousted the defending champions. In the “dead rubber” match, shortened to the best of three sets, Connors defeated Lendl 7–5, 6–4.

I was happy for the team, and especially for McEnroe. He and I had fairly different temperaments, but he had been through an ordeal in Britain, even if much of it was of his own making. “I need a rest,” he told a reporter. “I’m going to sit back, relax, and get away from the tennis scene. I’m going to see if people can forget who I am, so I can be left alone like everyone else.”

Connors, too, should have been happy, but he was not. He seemed uncomfortable, even out of place, on the team. He was a great player, with a wide following among the fans. In my opinion, however, he was somewhat envious of McEnroe and hated the fact that John was the center of so much fuss and commotion. As Peter Fleming once astutely observed, “Jimmy might not be able to stand the idea of being star No. 1-A behind Junior.” Jimmy sometimes seemed to want all the publicity for himself, no matter how it was earned. This was part of the reason he was so captivating; under pressure, he was a superb player. As far as I could tell, McEnroe never sought the notoriety that accompanied his outrageous behavior. At heart, he was a shy soul who simply couldn’t control himself at certain times. Connors envied the fame that accrued to McEnroe with his combination of bad behavior and astonishing play. But while Connors could put on a memorable tantrum, he lacked McEnroe’s edge of genius in this department, too. He simply didn’t have McEnroe’s awful gift of rage.

I don’t mean to deny Connors his rightful place in tennis history. Looking back from the early 1990s, with Connors still playing well, I see that he was the greatest male tennis player, bar none, in the two and a half decades since the Open era began in 1968. No top player lasted longer as a major attraction or so thoroughly captured the admiration and sympathy of the public for the same length of time. Only Billie Jean King, with her mixture of dedicated feminism, general gifts of leadership, and athletic brilliance, has been more important among all tennis players since World War II.

After his two victories, I was sure that Connors would be at my side in the Davis Cup for a long time to come. He had promised to play in other matches in 1981. In the hour of victory, however, he packed his bags and strolled away from us. The next time he played Davis Cup was in 1984.

IN OCTOBER, WE
played Australia in the semi-finals in Portland, Oregon. In recent years, the U.S. had stumbled badly from time to time, but the decline of Australian tennis had been precipitous. In Cup play, the Aussies showed no sign of fully recovering. We shut them out, 5–0. Once again, with McEnroe (though without Connors), we enjoyed a sellout crowd. In fact, the Portland crowd of 34,900 paying spectators over three days was a U.S. record for Davis Cup attendance.

I had also discovered, by this time, exactly what had sent Trabert over the edge and out of the captaincy the previous year. In various little ways that added up to a chronic headache, McEnroe was difficult to take at times. As captain, I was for protocol; he was not. John showed up for his matches but seemed to wait three minutes before starting play even if he was ready; it was a matter of utter indifference to him if he kept an international television audience waiting. And yet he was our heart and soul, the model of dedication to the Cup, and a patient, attentive, forgiving teammate. The following year, Gene Mayer, one of his teammates, published a tribute to John’s sterling qualities as
a team player: “He’s there trying to do whatever he can, he’s helpful, sincere, not cocky or carried away with himself as many of the young players are when they start to play so well at a young age.” I would endorse all of those accolades. But McEnroe hated any form of authority, at least in tennis. I wasn’t a linesman or an umpire or a referee, but as captain I represented authority, and he clearly felt an obligation to rebel.

I responded at first by keeping some distance between myself and John; I thought he needed room to commune with his demons and keep them at bay. In the doubles match that October against Peter McNamara and Phil Dent, however, the demons were all over the court. McEnroe and Fleming behaved so badly and uttered so many obscenities and profanities, and so insulted their opponents, the officials, and some spectators, that I was left embarrassed, enraged, and bitter. When I told the two of them that they had behaved disgracefully, they were unapologetic. I found myself withdrawing even more from them. In
World Tennis
magazine, the writer Richard Evans speculated about “the seemingly unbridgeable gap that existed between Ashe and two of his players—a gap that had more to do with upbringing than difference in age.” (I thought about Trabert when I read that remark.) Evans ventured that I might be “simply too low-key for McEnroe—and, it must be said—for other members of the team as well.” McEnroe, on the other hand, “was operating at a pitch of emotional endeavor that Ashe could barely understand.”

Perhaps Evans was right, but John knew that he had been out of control, simply outrageous. After the match, he showed a twinge of remorse, although he did not share it directly with me. “We blew it,” he told Evans. “I know, don’t tell me, man, we blew it.”

As much as possible, I avoided trying to coach John, or John and Peter when they were playing doubles, during a match. At one point, during a changeover, Fleming had told me flatly not to try.

“John and I have played a million doubles matches,” Peter
said agitatedly, as he himself later recalled. “We don’t need advice or coaching.”

I took him at his word, and kept my mouth shut. I coached players who wanted to be coached, and kept my distance from the others. I found it hard, however, to desist from coaching but perform as a cheerleader, which all the players evidently expected of me. It wasn’t, I hope, a matter of pique. I had enormous respect for John’s court intelligence; I couldn’t imagine that he or anyone else needed me to cheer him on. But a number of people, including finally John and Peter themselves, thought I should have become more active during the matches. Eventually this criticism reached the magazines. “Maybe I didn’t expect Arthur to take me so literally,” Fleming remarked. So much for obedience.

The tension between McEnroe and me reached a climax not against Australia but at the finals against Argentina in November. We were playing at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. Before the match I let it be known that I was prepared to surrender and default the match if we misbehaved again. When word reached McEnroe, he chose to attack the reporters: “Why do you guys write about that stuff? All you want to do is sell newspapers!” John never fully accepted the fact that if he persisted in misbehaving, he could not win battles with the print media.

Once again, incidentally, Connors had teased and then eluded us. Apparently he had planned a ski trip for the same time as the final; or was it that he needed to rest? He had the cheek to call a cable television call-in talk show where I was a guest and wish us well. “It would be a lot easier,” I told him, “if you were with us.” Which is about my limit in sarcasm. After the match, I said that we would invite Connors again, “but we won’t chase him anymore, that’s for sure.”

There was great tension among the players in Cincinnati. The glamorous and talented Argentinean stars Guillermo Vilas and Jose Luis Clerc, egged on by their Latin brand of vanity, which seemed almost limitless, made it clear that
they could barely stand one another’s presence; yet they were to represent their country not only in singles matches but also as doubles partners. For McEnroe, however, this was a grudge match
par excellence
. The previous year, in Buenos Aires, he had lost Davis Cup matches to both Vilas and Clerc. He had lost on clay—his least favorite surface—before a tumultuous, heckling crowd that he obviously had not forgotten or forgiven. Now, at home and on a fast synthetic surface, he wanted blood.

In the first match, he overran Vilas in straight sets, 6–3, 6–2, 6–2. Vilas had trouble with his first serve, and McEnroe pounded his second without mercy. A brilliant player and a famously sensitive man who wrote poetry, Vilas was so wounded by this thrashing that he refused to come to the interview room. Instead, he pouted and sulked in his tent. “Tell him to send us a poem,” one wag in the press corps jibed. Then Roscoe Tanner, fighting hard but with his game clearly unstable against a wily, resourceful opponent, lost to Clerc, also in straight sets. The doubles match became crucial.