Jimmy Connors took tennis out of the "country club" atmosphere and made it more street. He also tended to stay back more than almost all other players of the first half of the 1970s, and had a certain power in his game. So Connors was huge in this sense. Prior to Connors, there had been Ilie Nastase in terms of bad behaviour not of the "country club", but Nastase was seen as more of a maverick while Connors became a dominant force and more "in your face". Prior to Nastase, there had been Pancho Gonzales, but the tennis authorities ignored him and the pre-open era professional tour as much as they could.
Bjorn Borg and Guillermo Vilas had incredible fitness by 1970s standards, even more so Vilas in my opinion. Roscoe Tanner was outstanding for serving power in the 1970s, mostly with a metal racquet that he used.
Wooden racquets started to fade fast 1982-1985 time. Ivan Lendl started taking the game to greater heights in terms of fitness, diet, preparation, racquets in plastic bags etc., John McEnroe was at the forefront of the first power transition around 1983-84 time with graphite racquets, but was shocked by what was happening at 1985 Wimbledon with big servers Kevin Curren and Boris Becker. In the second half of the 1980s, the power in tennis seemed to gradually increase each year, with players like Lendl and Becker at the forefront, and then into the 1990s big servers like Goran Ivanisevic and Pete Sampras took the power to another level followed by when Jim Courier started having a good run in 1991-1993, and the big power forehand again changed the way that tennis was.
Gut strings were still dominant in the 1990s, and there was therefore a greater than ever contrast between styles on the different surfaces. Clay seemed to favour baseline play, grass big serving and volleys, hardcourt a mixture of the two, carpet more big serving and short rallies. In the late 1990s, Gustavo Kuerten started to use a poly string which would again change the way tennis was played, enabling a player to control rallies more easily with great depth and authority, making it harder for serve and volleyers as the poly string would enable returners to more easily pass their opponents.
The big 3 of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have of course taken the level of tennis to unbelievable heights, particularly the style of baseline rallies using poly strung racquets, sometimes with some gut mixture for some rawer, flatter power.
- because it was a surprise tactics.
