Regarding the French in 74. Connors knew well ahead of time that they had banned him although he appealed it.
I doubt he would have played the French without a tuneup although he did it in 1979. In 1979, he entered at the last minute.
I'm not claiming that he would have won. I just think he had a better chance 74-78 rather than after Borg's ascent.
But even in 74 Borg took him to 3 sets in the US Clay Courts. Their 75 semi was 3 7-5 sets, I believe. He was beating Borg on clay, not dominating him.
And Connors did win North Conway 3 times on American red clay. Not the same thing , I know, but not har tru either. Also, har tru isn't fast in general.
It's faster than Europeon clay. How far did we see players like Ashe advance the 3 years they played it on that surface?
I would have liked to have seen Connors try instead of, I thought, cutting off his nose to spite his face.
At some point in those 5 years I think he would have had a chance. I think better than later on where Borg had just gotten too good.
To the bold parts: I agree that he had a chance and that his best chance would have been in the mid-70s. But I have strong doubts that he would have done it.
You mention Borg getting too good later, and that’s true – but Connors wasn’t being defeated by Borg when he returned to the French. He lost as you know to Pecci, Gerulaitis and Clerc before reaching Borg. This is not to nitpick – I think it’s a central point in all this. The emphasis is always on how Connors might, or might not, have won the French in imaginary meetings with Borg. And it’s natural enough to think of it that way since Borg won all those titles. But my strongest doubts are about Connors beating all the great clay-courters he might face over the two weeks.
This is the thing, on a given day, perhaps when the court was playing fast, or the opponent gave him pace, he could appear brilliant. Then the next day he’d run into someone good enough to spit the ball back repeatedly and really test his ability to keep hitting winners with his low margin for error. And year after year he encountered someone against whom he couldn’t keep hitting the winners enough to win three sets, which I think can be especially difficult for high-risk players to do on clay.
The North Conway victories on red clay, though impressive, were only best-of-three. I think it’s somewhat similar to what happened in ’84 when McEnroe beat Lendl twice on clay in short matches, including one on red clay: but when forced to win three straight sets at Roland Garros he couldn’t keep up the pace. And suddenly he was caught in a dogfight, getting increasingly tired and making more errors, while the other guy, with great margin for error on his strokes, could keep his errors down even when tired himself.
Which is one reason I think Borg had such a great five-set record. No matter how tired or nervous he was, he had an easy way to keep getting the ball in play, which put the pressure on the other guy to hit winners past him. In a fifth set against Connors at RG, even in ’74-75, I’d take Borg. Jimmy’s best chance would be to put him away early.
Of course he did that to Borg on Har-Tru at the USO, where the matches (most of them) were best-of-five. Obviously Connors has to be counted among the best claycourters of the decade -- based mainly on his Har-Tru performances. And that's the thing: I don’t know why Connors’ performances at the French were never as good as the ones at Forest Hills.
Was it merely the fact that Har-Tru was somewhat faster than red clay? Or maybe growing up in the States he was somewhat more familiar with how to move on Har-Tru? Or he just prepared for the USO better than for the French? Maybe a combination of all these things?
I think you’ve seen a lot of Connors matches so I wondered what your take was on this.
One thing that strikes me about the USO matches is how much Connors is attacking the net. And he’s successful at it. Against Orantes, Borg and Vilas he’s getting into net a lot and is mostly successful up there. That was true even in ’75, when he couldn’t get a set from Orantes but was still getting his points at net.
Some months ago I saw his RG losses to Pecci and Gerulaitis, and I just didn’t see anything like that success at net. Again, I don’t know exactly what you can put that down to. Was red clay slow enough to account for the difference, slow enough just to make life more difficult for anyone who wanted to win points at net? Or maybe Connors didn’t know how to move forward on red clay as well as he did on Har-Tru, because it was a surface he was relatively less familiar with? Or maybe he didn’t put in enough preparation beforehand?
I was most impressed with Pecci, as a better claycourter than Connors. Gerulaitis, too, though not a great claycourter like Borg, had good clearance over the net with his slice backhand; and in crosscourt rallies that shot usually held up better than Connors’ forehand.
In both those matches what struck me was that Connors’ ability to win points was relatively limited: strike the ball in the center of the strings with perfect accuracy and end the point with a winner. No wonder he couldn’t do it for more than two sets. Outlasting his opponents (waiting for an error), was not an option. Hitting big serves like Pecci (or even Vitas, at times), was also not an option. Connors sometimes hit with topspin, but mostly he hit flat, and with less variety than either Pecci or Gerulaitis. Certainly with less safety.
Connors could volley, of course, but even there he had to work very hard; and Pecci for some reason was able to attack the net on the red clay much more efficiently.
So I just see a big difference between Connors at the USO and at RG.
Was that because Connors was already aging by the time he returned to RG? I’m not so sure, because the 1979 French was less than two years after the ’77 USO. And in ’79-80 he was still young, still hanging tough with Borg and McEnroe at W and USO.
In ’82-83, Connors was still good enough actually to win Wimbledon and the USO, yet he reached only the quarterfinals at RG.
McEnroe came closest to winning the French in ’84, when he was not only playing well generally but he’d also decided that he had to play his game and come in all the time. I think if Connors, in the mid-70s, had done something similar, preparing well for the French, taking it seriously, committing to playing his attacking game and ironing out whatever difficulties he might have had on the red clay – that would have been his best shot.
And it’s really too bad he didn’t do that. Seeing him mix it up with Borg, Orantes and Vilas at the French would have been great. And think of the matches it would have produced.
