For a gloriously long while last week, nobody could, and the sports world reveled in the upside-the pure excitement of having a problem child. Jim Courier, 21, finally took him apart, methodically and in straight sets, in the semifinals. But until then all the best young tennis studs could not keep up with the man who’s gone from Beatle bangs to body wave before our eyes. They came, they saw a man whose shots seemed to date to an era when racquets were smaller and the ball traveled with less topspin-and then Connors conquered, albeit almost never without a heavy dose of drama. His opening round match against 25-year-old Patrick MeEnroe ended at 1:35 a.m. His Labor Day cookout of Aaron Krickstein took four hours and 41 minutes. That, of course, included a long and well-miked tirade against the umpire, whom Connors repeatedly referred to as “an abortion.”
How would he like to be called that, someone asked Connors? “I’ve been called worse,” he shot back. Not recently, though; he’s now the man in the Teflon tennis togs. Martina Navratilova, 34, who lost to Monica Seles in the final, drew inspiration from Jimmy’s aggressiveness. “I’m a spring chicken next to him,” she said. And John McEnroe, who might have been jealous, seemed jubilant about Jimbo’s success. After Connors qualified for the semis, MeEnroe rushed to the locker room, where a guard was trying to keep out well-wishers. “I’ve come to see President Connors,” he said, charging up the stairs.
And so Connors became the most compelling proof yet that this is the decade of the aging athlete. Not even the no-hitter Nolan Ryan tossed last May at 44, or the gallant attempt that George Foreman made, at 42, to regain the heavyweight championship, softened the surprise of Connors’s sudden re-emergence. “Jimmy himself keeps saying he can’t believe what’s happening,” says his manager, Ray Benton. “He’s been calling me and saying things like, ‘It feels like a dream’.” Connors repeatedly said last week that he was operating on emotion, that his mind was boggled by “this second chance someone has given me” and that it would take him “six months to sort out the feelings” he was experiencing as he fought, cussed and slammed his way through the Open.
What he was describing, however, was pretty much business as usual. Connors has never relied solely on his footwork and shot selection, as extraordinary as those assets are, and his harangue-time has stayed fairly steady over the years. “The secret of Jimmy’s big comeback,” says Benton, “is that he never really went away.” Connors was still hanging tough against the top-ranked players in the world when he injured his wrist last fall in Italy. He had an operation, then took a few months off, but he never stopped running a few miles each day, working out on the Stairmaster and watching his diet. He has resisted the trend toward weight training, preferring, says his manager, “to stay in shape for tennis by playing tennis.” These days he weighs 155, almost 15 pounds less than he did in the mid-’70s.
When he went four extraordinary sets with Michael Chang in this year’s French Open, the tennis world knew he was just weeks away from a level of conditioning known as match-toughness. He gets a massage after each match, and occasionally takes mineral replenishments intravenously. At his age, he says, it sometimes takes a game or two before he stops feeling sluggish. But then, he is “seeing the ball” at times “better than I ever have.” His state of mind is much harder to gauge, though he has a reputation as someone who never drank, took drugs or complained about the travel, the pressure or the possibility of burnout. “Anyone who talks like that,” he says disgustedly, “makes me certain that youth is wasted on the young.” Connors often mentions his wife, of 12 years, Patti, and their children, Brett, 12, and Aubree-Leigh, 6, as mellowing influences, but beyond that his personal life is not for public consumption. It is not only that he cherishes privacy; he hates mellowness. “My biggest problem is not opponents,” he says, “it’s how to cope with myself.”
But is Connors really still crazy after all these years, or simply sane enough to believe tennis should not be two spiritual Swedes endlessly exchanging perfect groundstrokes until everyone falls asleep? Deep into his match against Haarhuis, Connors spotted a verbal altercation between two men in the corporate boxes, Naturally, he was delighted. “Hey,” he called from his spot on the service line, “that’s not supposed to happen in this country-club sport.” Minutes later, Connors was feigning an injury by grabbing his crotch and groaning. Just ask anyone in that country-club sport: Jimmy Connors wasn’t supposed to happen, either.
