Days of Grace

by Arthur Ashe

  As our squad assembled in Carlsbad, I began to see that the job was more challenging than I had imagined. I had to instruct the players but also keep them happy, respond to their questions and requests, supervise practices, and be ready to make instant decisions during the matches. I soon discovered that even players who believed wholeheartedly in the team concept had egos that sometimes required the balm of special favors. The squad was a collection of individuals, each of whom was something of a star in his own right. To emphasize the team concept, I never spoke about “my” team, but always about “our” team and what “we” hoped to accomplish or had accomplished. I found myself being called upon to apply both diplomacy and psychology to keep everyone happy. I also found that I did not enjoy this aspect of my job much. Dutiful myself, I disliked being a nursemaid or a babysitter for my fellow adults.

  Assuredly, McEnroe was the center of attention, as befitting the kind of tennis player the world might see only once every fifty years. Several other players also had his amazing array of shots, but no one else could consistently select each shot at precisely the right moment under intense match pressure, execute the shot, and make it look as easy as John routinely did. No one had the disguised swerve of his highly unorthodox left-handed serve, or the tantalizingly soft touch of his volleys and drop shots. No one was more genuinely self-confident, or could raise his game on demand with the smooth, swift overdrive that John commanded.

  With relatively little effort, McEnroe won his first singles match. Then Roscoe Tanner lost a long, five-set match to the cat-quick veteran Raul Ramirez. Suddenly the doubles match became far more important than I had anticipated. In selecting my doubles team, I had relied on the theory that the singles players should be kept fresh to play singles; they should avoid playing doubles if at all possible. Thus I had discounted the wisdom of a little joke that had been making the rounds of the tennis world:

  “Who is the best doubles team in the world?”

  “McEnroe and Peter Fleming.” Fleming was McEnroe’s regular partner.

  “Who is the second best?”

  “McEnroe and anyone else.”

  No matter how good he was as a singles player, McEnroe was probably the best doubles player who had ever lived. His court sense was uncanny. And yet, after the withdrawal of Smith and Lutz, I had stuck to my theory and turned to Riessen and Stewart, who promptly fell in five sets to Ramirez and an unknown seventeen-year-old player, Jorge Lozano. We were down 1–2. What was supposed to be a breeze was now a cliff-hanger. Fortunately, Tanner then won his match and McEnroe easily defeated Ramirez in straight sets to win the tie for us.

  We broke out the champagne to celebrate not only the win but also the fact that the tie against Mexico had been a sellout, with the stadium packed for each match. Ever since McEnroe had joined the team, Davis Cup tennis had become a popular attraction once again.

  Among those present at Carlsbad was Pancho Gonzalez. At one point, he took me aside for some words of advice concerning my theory about not mixing singles and doubles play.

  “Your theory is bulldust, Arthur,” said Pancho. “Nothing but bulldust. You should play your best doubles players even if they are playing singles. If they are fit, they are not going to be too tired. McEnroe would not have lost that match.”

  Gonzalez had a point. I needed to be more practical, less dogmatic perhaps.

  “And another thing, Arthur.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve got to be more involved in what’s going on on the court.”

  “But I am involved, Pancho,” I said. “Sometimes my heart was thumping away out there.”

  “Well, we don’t want your heart to thump too much, Arthur. But you have to look more involved, I guess.”

  Far more than my doubles theory, which I was ready to alter, this business of seeming to be involved would be a sore point over the coming years. I did not want to interfere with the play of international tennis stars by seeking to coach them on camera. I had been Tanner’s first doubles partner when he turned professional, and he welcomed my advice; other players seemed to resent it. Tanner, whose powerful game could suddenly become erratic, needed hours of practice to groove his strokes; McEnroe found anything more than two hours of practice redundant. I had to indulge both players. At courtside, I tended to be restrained. I did not intend to leap up at every point during a match merely to assert my presence or authority. And I was determined not to join the players automatically in their protests and tantrums, as football and basketball coaches routinely do. I would back the players if I thought they had a point, but I wouldn’t become enraged on demand.

  Connors created a stir when he showed up in Carlsbad and offered to practice with McEnroe and Tanner. We took him up on his offer. His arrival was a significant development because of his repeated refusal to play on the Davis Cup team since 1976, when he lost a deciding fifth match to Ramirez. That defeat of the United States by Mexico had been one of the most ignominious in U.S. Davis Cup history. Soon after I accepted the captaincy, I had called Connors and asked him to join the team, and he had said that he would do so, but not against Mexico. No matter; I knew that he would be invaluable against our next opponent, Czechoslovakia, and its best player, Ivan Lendl, whom he had beaten in all seven of their matches.

  Watching Jimmy and John hit at Carlsbad, I was looking at not only the two best players in American tennis but also the two most brash and stormy personalities in our tennis world. In some ways, as a tennis phenomenon, Connors was by far the more extraordinary. Unlike McEnroe, who came from the affluent community of Douglaston, Queens, in the city of New York, Connors had been born in Belleville, Illinois, a town adjacent to East St. Louis, a name now almost synonymous with urban blight. If Connors was sometimes ill-mannered, brusque, and downright truculent, he seemed to have the approval of his mother, Gloria Connors, and her own mother. The women had obviously wanted to shape a fighter, and they succeeded brilliantly.

  Physically unprepossessing, even a little frail, Connors nevertheless wore an air of such arrogance that he regularly intimidated his opponents even before he had hit a ball. Then he proceeded to smack the ball with a force that bordered on vindictiveness. His two-handed backhand shot from midcourt, when he had time to play it well, was among the most damaging strokes ever seen in tennis. It rivaled the famed two-handed forehand shot of Pancho Segura, who was once a mentor to Connors. Jimmy’s return of serve was unbridled aggression. His overhead smashes were awkward but decisive. And in his prime he never seemed to tire, much less become despondent on the court. His heart was always in it, and his readiness to fight never left him.

  His career was also unusual. In the early 1970s, his clever manager at the time, Bill Riordan, had created an entire mini-circuit around Connors, with the immensely gifted but always mercurial Rumanian player Die Nastase as his comic counterpart. Then, in 1974, Connors launched his first major attack on the tennis citadels of the world. That year, he won Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open.

  As a player, I admired him. In other ways, Connors disturbed me. He refused to join the ATP even though he, like all the professionals, profited from its labors. He never helped in our ongoing struggles with the national and international governing bodies. He seemed to care little for what most people expected of him—or his advisers didn’t care, and he was loyal to them. Above all, I never did understand his refusal to play Davis Cup tennis. There had never been an American player of his caliber who, when asked, had consistently refused. Jimmy’s stand had antagonized a number of us, including not only the USTA but also players like Stan Smith and Charlie Pasarell, who had grown up with different ideas.

  Actually, I considered the Davis Cup his Achilles’ heel, because it raised questions about his patriotism. In 1975, choosing my words carefully, I commented that James Scott Connors was “seemingly unpatriotic” in refusing to play for his country. Connors was outraged. Just before the start of Wimbledon that year, he filed a libel suit against me, req
uesting damages from the court in the amount of millions of dollars. Obviously Connors considered himself to be a very patriotic fellow. After I defeated him in the singles final at Wimbledon that year, he quietly dropped the suit.

  Now, six years later, he was ready to play under me for his country. He seemed not to have forgotten his defeat at the hands of Ramirez and Mexico. “I’d like to help the team win the Cup back,” he announced. “Being on a winning Davis Cup team is important to me, because I haven’t done that.”

  In July, at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, we met Czechoslovakia, the defending champions, in the quarterfinals. Connors agreed to play the second match, against Tomas Smid. McEnroe would play the first, against Lendl, who was then ranked number four in the world. Smith and Lutz would play doubles against Lendl and Smid. A more formidable tennis team had never before represented the United States. Davis Cup tickets, once difficult to sell, suddenly became precious.

  Unfortunately, unlike at Carlsbad, McEnroe arrived at Flushing Meadows with his nerves sorely frayed and his emotions drained. The previous Saturday, he had won Wimbledon by defeating Borg. However, he had behaved so execrably during various matches that the Wimbledon committee had fined him $2,250. It had also threatened, in scathing language, to levy an additional $12,500 in fines and to suspend him from playing in the future. The British press had treated him savagely. Then, in some respects the most shocking punishment came later in the week, after his victory. For the first time in the history of Wimbledon, the club refused to grant honorary membership to a reigning singles champion.

  I myself would have been devastated by this highly personal form of censure and ostracism. Although John was less affected than I would have been, he was definitely not elated at the news. He was an unhappy young man, hardly ready now to launch himself against powerful Czechoslovakia, when he joined us in New York for the Davis Cup tie.

  In the first match, under a fiery July sun and before 17,445 fans, the largest home crowd for a Davis Cup match in American history, McEnroe lost to Lendl. John’s usually lethal serve never locked onto its target and his volleys were often tentative, while Lendl was muscular and imposing. McEnroe behaved impeccably, but good manners were not enough; they seldom are. He lost in three sets: 6–4, 14–12, 7–5. (In those days, tiebreakers were not used in Davis Cup play.) “I wanted to do well,” he explained afterward, a little plaintively. “I tried. It’s hard to explain. In retrospect, I wish we didn’t have to play this particular week.… The mental thing of the last couple of weeks wore me out.”

  Connors, perhaps not entirely displeased that McEnroe had lost, proceeded to smash Smid 6–3, 6–1, 6–2. “Knowing John lost made me go out a little more eager, a little more up,” he told The New York Times. Of course, he avoided any suggestion that he had wanted to show up McEnroe. “I didn’t want to end the day 0–2, especially on Arthur’s birthday.”

  The next day, Smith and Lutz crushed Lendl and Smid in straight sets. Only once in the match did an American lose a game on his serve.

  On Sunday, McEnroe returned to form. He also stayed on his best behavior. The crowd, most of whom must have been his fellow New Yorkers, cheered his every point. Intimidated before the first ball was served, Smid did not put up much of a fight. McEnroe’s mastery was such that in the last two sets, he lost only two points on his serve. “I try my best,” Smid groaned, “but he’s too good for me.”

  With that victory, we won the tie and ousted the defending champions. In the “dead rubber” match, shortened to the best of three sets, Connors defeated Lendl 7–5, 6–4.

  I was happy for the team, and especially for McEnroe. He and I had fairly different temperaments, but he had been through an ordeal in Britain, even if much of it was of his own making. “I need a rest,” he told a reporter. “I’m going to sit back, relax, and get away from the tennis scene. I’m going to see if people can forget who I am, so I can be left alone like everyone else.”

  Connors, too, should have been happy, but he was not. He seemed uncomfortable, even out of place, on the team. He was a great player, with a wide following among the fans. In my opinion, however, he was somewhat envious of McEnroe and hated the fact that John was the center of so much fuss and commotion. As Peter Fleming once astutely observed, “Jimmy might not be able to stand the idea of being star No. 1-A behind Junior.” Jimmy sometimes seemed to want all the publicity for himself, no matter how it was earned. This was part of the reason he was so captivating; under pressure, he was a superb player. As far as I could tell, McEnroe never sought the notoriety that accompanied his outrageous behavior. At heart, he was a shy soul who simply couldn’t control himself at certain times. Connors envied the fame that accrued to McEnroe with his combination of bad behavior and astonishing play. But while Connors could put on a memorable tantrum, he lacked McEnroe’s edge of genius in this department, too. He simply didn’t have McEnroe’s awful gift of rage.

  I don’t mean to deny Connors his rightful place in tennis history. Looking back from the early 1990s, with Connors still playing well, I see that he was the greatest male tennis player, bar none, in the two and a half decades since the Open era began in 1968. No top player lasted longer as a major attraction or so thoroughly captured the admiration and sympathy of the public for the same length of time. Only Billie Jean King, with her mixture of dedicated feminism, general gifts of leadership, and athletic brilliance, has been more important among all tennis players since World War II.

  After his two victories, I was sure that Connors would be at my side in the Davis Cup for a long time to come. He had promised to play in other matches in 1981. In the hour of victory, however, he packed his bags and strolled away from us. The next time he played Davis Cup was in 1984.

  IN OCTOBER, WE played Australia in the semi-finals in Portland, Oregon. In recent years, the U.S. had stumbled badly from time to time, but the decline of Australian tennis had been precipitous. In Cup play, the Aussies showed no sign of fully recovering. We shut them out, 5–0. Once again, with McEnroe (though without Connors), we enjoyed a sellout crowd. In fact, the Portland crowd of 34,900 paying spectators over three days was a U.S. record for Davis Cup attendance.

  I had also discovered, by this time, exactly what had sent Trabert over the edge and out of the captaincy the previous year. In various little ways that added up to a chronic headache, McEnroe was difficult to take at times. As captain, I was for protocol; he was not. John showed up for his matches but seemed to wait three minutes before starting play even if he was ready; it was a matter of utter indifference to him if he kept an international television audience waiting. And yet he was our heart and soul, the model of dedication to the Cup, and a patient, attentive, forgiving teammate. The following year, Gene Mayer, one of his teammates, published a tribute to John’s sterling qualities as a team player: “He’s there trying to do whatever he can, he’s helpful, sincere, not cocky or carried away with himself as many of the young players are when they start to play so well at a young age.” I would endorse all of those accolades. But McEnroe hated any form of authority, at least in tennis. I wasn’t a linesman or an umpire or a referee, but as captain I represented authority, and he clearly felt an obligation to rebel.

  I responded at first by keeping some distance between myself and John; I thought he needed room to commune with his demons and keep them at bay. In the doubles match that October against Peter McNamara and Phil Dent, however, the demons were all over the court. McEnroe and Fleming behaved so badly and uttered so many obscenities and profanities, and so insulted their opponents, the officials, and some spectators, that I was left embarrassed, enraged, and bitter. When I told the two of them that they had behaved disgracefully, they were unapologetic. I found myself withdrawing even more from them. In World Tennis magazine, the writer Richard Evans speculated about “the seemingly unbridgeable gap that existed between Ashe and two of his players—a gap that had more to do with upbringing than difference in age.” (I thought abou
t Trabert when I read that remark.) Evans ventured that I might be “simply too low-key for McEnroe—and, it must be said—for other members of the team as well.” McEnroe, on the other hand, “was operating at a pitch of emotional endeavor that Ashe could barely understand.”

  Perhaps Evans was right, but John knew that he had been out of control, simply outrageous. After the match, he showed a twinge of remorse, although he did not share it directly with me. “We blew it,” he told Evans. “I know, don’t tell me, man, we blew it.”

  As much as possible, I avoided trying to coach John, or John and Peter when they were playing doubles, during a match. At one point, during a changeover, Fleming had told me flatly not to try.

  “John and I have played a million doubles matches,” Peter said agitatedly, as he himself later recalled. “We don’t need advice or coaching.”

  I took him at his word, and kept my mouth shut. I coached players who wanted to be coached, and kept my distance from the others. I found it hard, however, to desist from coaching but perform as a cheerleader, which all the players evidently expected of me. It wasn’t, I hope, a matter of pique. I had enormous respect for John’s court intelligence; I couldn’t imagine that he or anyone else needed me to cheer him on. But a number of people, including finally John and Peter themselves, thought I should have become more active during the matches. Eventually this criticism reached the magazines. “Maybe I didn’t expect Arthur to take me so literally,” Fleming remarked. So much for obedience.