Jimmy Connors
Jimmy Connors
James Scott "Jimmy" Connors is an American former world No. 1 tennis player, often considered among the greatest in the history of the sport. He held the top ranking for a then-record 160 consecutive weeks from July 29, 1974 to August 22, 1977 and an additional eight times during his career for a total of 268 weeks. He also held a year-end top ten ranking for an Open Era record 16 years...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAthlete
Date of Birth2 September 1952
CountryUnited States of America
It was like bulls banging heads. He brought out the best and the worst in me and I like to think I did the same with him. Jimmy is one of the greatest players that ever lived, in my opinion. He's like the Pete Rose of tennis. I never seen a guy try as hard as this person on a tennis court. That's something I really respected.
Playing in front of 25,000 people and millions more on television, and performing and doing what I worked so hard to try to accomplish was, in my opinion, the ultimate. Do I miss it? Of course I do.
Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible.
I don't go out there to love my enemy. I go out there to squash him.
From where we lived, to practise in St Louis was an hour-and-a-half drive each way, so that took a lot of the time. So really, our lives just took different paths.
You have to remember that I played longer than anybody else on the main tour; I played until I was 40, and then played another six years or so on the seniors tour.
Every time I went out there I performed the best that I could and it was time to step back and clear my mind.
I would watch Gonzalez play and he mesmerized you. It would be like looking into the flame of a fire. You know you couldn't take your eyes off him because you never knew what he would do next.