!PicBy Pete Bodo
Looking at the situations in which players find themselves at various crossroads of their careers, it's always helpful to ask, "What Would Jimbo (Connors) Do?" You don't hear Connors' name coming up in the GOAT debate even though he won eight Grand Slam titles, and he was the first man in the Open era after Rod Laver to win three Grand Slam singles titles in the same year (1974). Connors might have won the fourth, and joined Laver and Don Budge in a three-person Grand Slammers Club, had he not been banned from playing at Roland Garros in '74.
Beyond that, Connors is still the all-time leader in career titles with 109. And starting in 1974, he was a U.S. Open semifinalist or better for 12 consecutive years (winning five titles). Yet in the big picture, Connors was caught—and ultimately overtaken—by three major rivals: Bjorn Borg (career head-to-head: 15-8 to Borg), John McEnroe (20-14, McEnroe), and Ivan Lendl (22-13, Lendl). Those numbers are a mite deceptive, given that Connors put himself out there on the firing line for so long. But the attribute for which he's still most respectfully remembered is his competitiveness, summed up handily in one of the most famous quotes in our sport.
When Borg beat Connors in the 1978 Wimbledon final, the Swede suggested that if he also won the U.S. Open he would probably travel to Australia in attempt to complete a Grand Slam (at the time, none of the top players went to the Australian Open, whose major was at the end rather than the beginning of the year). Asked if Connors would go to Australia for the express purpose of stopping a Borg Slam, he replied, "I may follow him to the ends of the earth. . ."
That was quintessential Connors. A guy who would go out of his way to stop a rival, for revenge, for the joy or spoiling, or maybe just to get that familiar adrenalin rush—the one thing that every player desperately misses when he retires. Connors recognized the degree to which that rush made him feel vital and alive, and knew he could never replace it later in life. It's one of the reasons he didn't play his last ATP match until he was well into his 43rd year (losing to countryman Richey Reneberg in the first round at Atlanta).
There may have been greater players than Connors, but there's never been one with a more overwhelming (or more sustainable) zest for combat, nor many who so invested their entire being for so long in the game in the most literal sense—in what happens between the time the umpire says, "Players ready? Play!" and, "Game, set, match." Had Connors been a prizefighter, he would have ended up as one of those cautionary tales whose brains become permanently scrambled. He loved to fight and never wanted to stop.
So it's interesting to speculate on how Connors might have reacted to what Rafael Nadal experienced in 2011. The thing that got me thinking this way was Nadal's Davis Cup-clinching clash with Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina. In the beginning of that match, del Potro rocked Nadal in a way that few men ever have, and certainly not on red clay. Credit del Potro, but also note that Nadal allowed it to happen; it always takes two. Nadal charged back, but he struggled again near the end, and this time his opponent wasn't the main agent of his difficulties. It was Nadal himself.
Granted, there’s a lot of pressure playing with the home court advantage and the full support of a massive crowd, especially against a quality opponent whose back is against the wall. That's the often unremarked down side of being host in a Davis Cup tie. And it’s also true that it’s been a long, grueling, and in many ways frustrating year for the “King of Clay.”Nadal himself has certainly pointed that out often enough. Still, it seemed almost fitting—and symbolic—that Nadal would end his year slipping and sliding and grinding and grunting his way to a win that was well-earned and thoroughly deserved, if not what one might call pretty—or even entirely convincing.
So the question looms: What does Nadal do now?
Let's roll back in time to Connors vs. Borg. In the fall of 1973, Borg won their first meeting. It was in the semifinals of Stockholm, on Connors' preferred hard court, and the emerging Swedish star won 7-6 in the third. He was 17 years old, Connors a hoary 21. Connors then reeled off six straight wins, including two at the U.S. Open (a semi and a final). By the time they met in that storied '78 Wimbledon, Borg had narrowed the gap to 7-5 in favor of Connors, and by the time the men played in the Tokyo event of the following year, Borg moved ahead for good, 9-8.
The differences between Nadal and his new nemesis, Novak Djokovic, and Connors/Borg are multiple, starting with the lack of an age gap between the present-day rivalry (Nadal is almost exactly a year older). And Lendl and McEnroe were not yet able to play the roles for Borg and Connors that Roger Federer and Andy Murray have ably fulfilled for Djokovic and Nadal for some years now. But Djokovic has knocked Nadal off his pedestal this year, much as Borg was busy destroying the growing Connors mythology starting in the winter of 1976. Which begs the question: Is Nadal committed to following Djokovic to the proverbial "ends of the earth?"
That doesn't seem likely. Nadal is, after all, a radically different—and far more lovable—personality than Connors ever was. Also, we're living in a kind of golden age of sportsmanship, a time when the guy across the net is merely your opponent, not your enemy. What rivalries we've had since Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi have been driven by amiability rather than animosity. And Nadal has displayed a fair amount of general disillusion with the demands of career for over a year now, in a way that few players of a comparable age had in the past. It raises uncomfortable parallels with Borg, circa 1981. Note that in Connors, Borg conquered the man who was thought to be his career rival. He just didn't have it in him to go through all that crap again with McEnroe. Federer and Djokovic, anyone?
Lest this alarm Nadal fans, let's look at some of the dissimilarities presently in play. Djokovic and Nadal are contemporaries in the way Borg and Connors never were, and Djokovic has been in the mix near the top for a number of years now. His threat was not a new one. Among other things, this supports the idea that perhaps Djokovic's torrid 2011 was less a quantum leap than a remarkably lengthy period spent "in the zone." And let's face it, Djokovic was physically and mentally burned out by shortly after the U.S. Open.
A number of other players had years comparable to Djokovic's 2011 and they managed to remain effective through the fall and right up to the end of the year. So it turns out that those who said, “This guy can’t be for real” were to some degree right—even if being “for real” only between January and September is more than good enough in tennis. Still, Nadal and company would have far greater reason to worry had Djokovic finished the year anything like he started it.
A lot of the gap between Djokovic and the rest of the field may have been closed by the fall results, so Nadal isn't in nearly as bad a shape as it may appear based on the stats of 2011. Nadal would be best served if he embraced the notion that Djokovic ran out of steam and all bets are off for 2012. But a part of me wonders if Nadal isn't buying into the narrative that he helped create—that the season is too long and nothing that happens in the fall for good or ill matters very much. And that must make Djokovic seem formidable.
That's exactly why I think Nadal could use a little bit of that Connors "ends of the earth" mojo right around now. It isn't Rafa's way to talk trash or vow vengeance, but I hope for the sake of his career that in his own mind, he's. . . talking trash and vowing vengeance. That's what Connors used to do, and the energy his resentment and competitive drive engendered fueled the longest period of greatness any male player ever produced.
That leaves us with a great big question for 2012: Is Nadal willing and eager to follow Djokovic to wherever the mission takes him—even the ends of the earth?