Jimmy Connors - The Outsider: My Autobiography

To Patti

Contents

I m 29 years old and for the last three years people have been telling me Im finished, washed up, done.

That doesnt sit well with me. Ill say when Im done and Im not done yet. I havent even reached my peak. Screw em.

Its 1981 and I lost my hold on the number one ranking in the world in the previous year, and even though Ive claimed 17 titles since then, I havent won a major tournament. Theres an element of doubt creeping into my daily training: Do I still belong? Can I still compete at this level? Im not winning. Im being pushed onto the back burner. Thats hard to take.

Im up, Im down. I think Im good and then I dont win. I get up every day and do the right things, but the results arent improving. Im getting to the semifinals, and Im losing matches I should win. Not good enough. Winning lesser tournaments along the way is fine, but its not the majors and thats what Im looking for. Anyone else in those years would have been content with my recordbut not me and obviously not the media. This has been the most frustrating three years of my career.

Youre not going to reach your prime until your thirties, my mom keeps telling me. My prime? What the hell, Mom? What was the last six or seven years about?

You wait, she says. You havent played your best tennis yet.

My wife, Patti, our two-year-old son, Brett, and I are living in North Miami at Turnberry Isle, Florida. We moved down from Los Angeles for the tennis, but distractions are everywhere. This is a playground for the wealthy. Rich people come here from all over the world for the gambling, discos, restaurants, golf, andIm guessingdrugs. In the evenings I can go down to the courts and play tennis against guys who bet $5,000 a set they can beat me if I play them right-handed. Guess what? They cant. The extra cash is nice, but the fun and laughs is what its really all about. But I have only one thing on my mind: reclaiming my position at the top of the tennis world.

I continue to work my ass off every day, practicing two and a half hours in the morning with the Turnberry Club tennis pro, Fred Stolle, a former Grand Slam champion from Australia. He stands in one corner of the court and hits the ball to the opposite corner so I have to run the whole width of the court in order to return the shot. Then he moves to the other corner and I do the same thing from the other side. Then Fred comes up to the net and stands over on the right side so that my forehand passing shots have to go up the line and my backhand has to go crosscourt. Every drill I do is designed to replicate a situation Im going to face against my toughest opponents. Ive never hit a shot in a match that I havent practiced over and over.

Later in the day I play a couple of sets with my longtime friend David Schneider, a former top South African player, who practices with me whenever I want to fine-tune what I worked on with Fred that morning. Afterward, David and I have a Coke and relax as buddies. Its nice to let tennis go and be able to talk about other things.

Its difficult balancing tennis with family life, my friends. When Im with my family, I feel like Im slighting the tennis. When Im practicing, I feel like Im slighting my family. When I get up at 6:30 a.m., Brett is eating breakfast and watching The Smurfs . I want to spend time with him, but I know I have work to do on the court. When Im playing tennis, I feel I should be spending time at the pool with Brett and Patti. There are conflicts everywhere I turn. When friends visit, I want to go out and have fun with them, stay out late, but then I am slighting both my tennis and my family. If I go down to the restaurant for breakfast Ill see 10 people Im obliged to say hello to and that will hold up my day.

Mom is on the phone. I talk to her at least 10 times a day. This may sound like a lot, but Mom is also my business manager. My schedule is made six months in advance, so not only is she checking in as a mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother; she is letting me know about commercial offers, upcoming tournaments, and all the numerous details involved in my career.

If any of the calls lasts more than a few seconds, its because she knows Im having problems. Shes concerned about me. I have to push myself further than I want to, train harder, practice longer. Im older and things dont come as easily now. I dont mind the physical part. Its getting into the right mental state that I find tough. I havent been winning the way I expect to, but I have to find a way to act as if I am, so I wont talk myself out of it. I dont want to fall into that trap of saying, Oh, shit, maybe theyre right. Maybe I am finished. I have to find my self-confidence, even though Im not sure where I left it. Things arent working out for me, so to get myself through it I have to be twice as arrogant. Thats how Ill cope. I cant go out there and just be half-assed; Ive got to go all the way. I have to be prepared, I have to be in the best shape possible, and my game has to be ready.

Wembley, England. November 14, 1981.

Wembley is a big tournament at the end of the year, but it isnt a Grand Slam, and yet this isnt just another match. Im down two sets to love, looking across the court at... John McEnroe.

I love playing Borg, Lendl, Nastase, Panatta, and Gerulaitis. The list of great players from my era is as long as my arm, but to play Mac is beyond the realm of just tennis. Hes my gauge; I look to him to see the level I have to reach to be number one again.

Mac is the best player in the world. Hes just won Wimbledon and the US Open. When McEnroe was coming up he wanted everything that I had. I was number one in the United States and he wanted that. I was number one in the world and he wanted that. Then he took it all. And now I want it back.

Im not just going to roll over and say its too tough, that hes too young (seven years younger to be exact). Even though Mac and I clash at every turn, were so much alike its scary. Im Irish, hes Irish. Im left-handed, hes left-handed. Ive got a bad attitude, hes got a bad attitude. Ive always said I would love to play myself, and Mac is as close to playing me as Im going to get.

This McEnroe match could be my return to winning in a big way. I know my game is getting better again, and now I have a chance to prove it by beating Mac in the final.

Unfortunately, Im down two sets to love. All I can do is to figure out how to stay out there one more minute, one more point, one more ball, one more anything to keep putting some pressure on Macthats all I want to do. I made my reputation on my all-out aggressive style of play and Im going to live or die again today with that. Im not just going to wait for something to happen. Im going to force the action.

But, right now, Im not in it. Mac is the show. Hes doing everything right and Im like a bit player in his future Broadway production of Kicking Connorss Ass . Im getting steamrolled, but, in tennis, sometimes even the smallest thing can change the course of a match. It might be a shot, a call, an interruption from the stands, anything to relieve the pressure and the tension. Of course, that kind of small change can work against me, too. It wouldnt be the first time I let myself get sidetracked.

Mac is under what I call confrontation time-out, which means he hasnt emptied his bucket yet, theres still more to come, and hes resting up for a second assault on the umpire. Hes sitting in his chair looking up at him, and then he starts in again.

You dont know the rules. You dont have the right to tell me anything.