All of the major tournaments have players who have become synonymous with the event—inseparable from it, as if they were born to play there. Andre Agassi at the Australian Open. Björn Borg, Chris Evert and Rafael Nadal at the French Open. Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer at Wimbledon. At the US Open, it’s Jimmy Connors, and everyone else is in a fight for second place.
It’s not just that Connors is American and the only man to win the US Open on grass, clay and hard courts. At the world’s craziest, grittiest, toughest tennis tournament, he was the craziest, grittiest, toughest player of them all. Twenty years ago, Connors—at age 39, less than a year removed from reconstructive wrist surgery and, most everyone thought, long since finished—went on his wildest US Open run. It began with a two-sets-to-love deficit in the first round (his victim: Patrick McEnroe) and peaked on his 39th birthday in an iconic fourth-round five-set match against Aaron Krickstein. The lobs. The returned overheads. The quips. The arguments. The fist pumps. The yelling. And near bedlam when Connors came back to win after having trailed 5-2 in the fifth.
It’s the 20th anniversary of your last great run at the US Open, and the famous Aaron Krickstein match. Where does it rank for you?
The 1991 US Open was the best 11 days of my career. To have been off for a year and have had my wrist reconstructed—nobody realized what I’d gone through to get back. I had to strengthen my wrist and almost learn how to play as beginner, and I had to take shots from the press along the way. There’s nothing like incentive to make you really want it. Now someone has a hangnail and it’s major news.
How long did you have to wait to even pick up a racquet after the surgery?
I hurt my wrist in the first tournament I played in 1990. I went to wrist surgeons all over the country, and every one of them told me to rest and it would be OK. I got the feeling they were afraid to make a move because they didn’t want to be the one to end my career. So I rested and rested, then I got a little bored and tried to go play a few tournaments by shooting my wrist up—it didn’t work. In late September, a doctor friend of mine called and he said, “Jimmy, what’s up?” I said, “Oh, nothing. I just got back.” He said, “I’ll tell you what’s up: You are. Tomorrow morning in my office. Because you’re finished anyway.” Now, that’s kind of gut-wrenching. He opened my wrist up and saw what was in there, which was not much. He went about rebuilding and reconstructing my left wrist. I was in a full-arm cast for 10, 11 weeks, and a half cast for another six weeks. I went out and started playing tennis by having my two kids throw me balls like I did for them when they first started. All along, the criticism and the treatment was a little . . . . It’s funny how fast you can go from No. 1 to number none. I had moderate success at the French Open and Wimbledon. But to get to the US Open and play my best tennis and be within that whirlwind circle for that 11 days was a tremendous experience.
Earlier this year, a researcher plugged tons of tennis matches over several decades into a formula and determined that you were the greatest player of all time, based on the number of your quality wins over the years. What do you make of that?
It goes to show the quality of matches and competition I played against in my generation. I mean, look at how many great players came out at the same time that I did—and a little bit before—because I played the likes of Laver and Newcombe and Emerson and Gonzalez, and then into the Agassi, Sampras, Courier generation as well.
What’s your take on the game today?
Coaching Andy Roddick for about a year and a half [starting in 2006] was an a eye-opening experience. I was able to see a lot of changes happening in the game—the good, the bad, and some of the ugly of it all. I enjoyed working with Andy an awful lot, but it was certainly interesting to come back and see how the equipment has changed the game with the racquets and the strings, and what that means to the way the guys play. Going to Wimbledon, I saw how they changed the grass and the different kind of tennis that is played at Wimbledon now compared to when I was playing. I’d have a fi ve-or six-ball rally with Borg back then and we would almost be booed. Now they’re longing for that. So it’s amazing how things have come around and the precedent that was set back 35 years ago that they’re longing for now. Was there any time better than when I played? I have to say that, right? I’ll be honest with you: I think I come from a generation that is lost. The people—the establishment and maybe a lot of fans—really didn’t know what to make of us because we were so different. Our attitudes were different; our games were all different; nobody played the same. Everybody plays the same now. We had variety and we had charisma. I hate to say it like this, but we had it all, and they didn’t appreciate it.
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Despite playing with a surigcally repaired right wrist and a left knee that stiffened, Connors overcame 106 unforced errors to win the match in four hours and 41 minutes. (AP Images)Who are your favorite players on the tour today?
**Nadal for sure. And lately, Djokovic. Federer is now finding out what it’s like to have to beat Djokovic and Nadal in the semis and finals to win a tournament. So it’s going to be interesting to see how he handles that and what changes he makes to get back in the mix. But his game is more of elegance and style. Nadal is gritty and not afraid to get dirty. That’s my kind of guy.
Federer just turned 30. How long can he stay near the top, and is there ever going to be anyone as competitive as you were at 38 and 39?
Because the variety of opponents is not like it was, I would think that being able to play longer would be a little bit easier now. You don’t have to deal with playing McEnroe one way and then Lendl one way and then Borg another way and then Eddie Dibbs another way. Every match that you played, you had to take two or three diff erent ways to play out to the court to play in case one didn’t work. The way the guys are playing now, their styles are mostly all the same.
What’s your take on American tennis? Is it just tougher with so many countries producing players?
It shouldn’t be. We taught ’em everything. The States was the plan. Everybody came over and learned how to do it from here and then went back and improved it. Unfortunately, everybody else improved theirs. We thought that we’re so good, we’re just going to have the best players in the world for 35 or 40 years. We had my generation, then they went into Agassi, Sampras, Courier, that generation, to where they had the best for so long that you kind of sit back and say, “Just keep on a coming.” Oops.
You had your share of arguments over line calls. Would you have liked to have had an electronic line-calling system like Hawk-Eye, or does it take something away from the drama of the game?
Well, you know what I’m going to say. I mean, that was all part of the drama of the tennis. Now you question a call and it’s a three-second drama. If you look at Hawk-Eye compared to when we were playing, how many matches teetered on one call then? How many service breaks did I lose by a half of a half of a millimeter or whatever? Or how many did I win? Calls could have been a bigger part of winning and losing matches than we ever thought. Now you wonder why me and Mac and Nastase and Gerulaitis and a few guys kind of lost it on occasion.
When you reacted that way, were you always able to use it in a postive way?
Everything played a part in it. Winning tennis matches, it was more than just hitting balls back and forth. It’s how you handle your emotions and how you handle the crowd and how you handle your opponent and the linesmen. It’s how you handle the whole situation out there that really made the winners and the losers. I enjoyed that aspect of it. It wasn’t gamesmanship, it was just standing up for my rights. I didn’t have a coach come out there and yell and scream for me; I had to make my presence known on my own. A guy might have robbed me one time; I had to make sure he didn’t do it again. I think Mac or Naste or Vitas or whoever was in that position did the same thing. A lot of guys did it in different ways. Some guys just got more attention for doing it the way they did it.
Have you watched the Krickstein match since you played it?
I have a little bit. I haven’t sat down to watch the whole thing point to point, but I’ve gone through spots in it. I was crazy—that’s the way I played. I played crazy; my attitude was crazy. Hopefully you got the kind of tennis that you wanted, and anything else you got along the way was a bonus.
When you see it now, do you still feel what you felt at that moment?
The feeling of playing a US Open final and what it’s like to really be dug in in a match and 5-all in the fi fth—I wish I could find that feeling again. A lot of guys like to win 2, 2 and 2—anybody can do that. The real stuff starts at 4- or 5-all in the fifth. I can’t find that feeling anymore. It’s gone. I wish I could find it just one more time.
Originally published in the September/October 2011 issue of TENNIS.