Challenge Reunites Tennis Legends
John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg in the “War of 1816” played out on Wimbledon’s Centre Court.
Jimmy Connors and Guillermo Vilas in the U.S. Open final at Forest Hills.
“The rivalries that we had stood out for a reason,” Connors recently said. “We had our personalities on court and off the court.”
Their rivalries - and personalities - helped propel tennis into a worldwide boom, a time when tactics and stroke production rather than pure power produced tournament titles.
“Fifteen years ago, you didn’t like Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe,” Connors said in a telephone conference call. “When Connors, McEnroe, Borg and Vilas came in, the game changed.”
Between them, Borg, McEnroe, Connors and Vilas have won 30 Grand Slam tournament titles, including every Wimbledon and U.S. Open title from 1974 through 1984 with the exception of 1975.
The four will battle again May 19-21 in The Challenge, a four-man tournament in Monterey, Calif. ABC will televise the last two days of the $325,000 event live.
“We grew up together, and we’ve been enemies,” said Vilas, who beat Connors in the U.S. Open final in 1977, one of the three years America’s premier tennis tournament was played on clay. “We like it. It’s in our blood.”
Twelve times, two of the four met in the final of a Grand Slam tournament, with half of those coming on the grass courts at Wimbledon. One of the most memorable was the 1980 final, when McEnroe outlasted Borg 18-16 in a remarkable fourth-set tiebreak. Borg, though, won the match, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (16-18), 8-6.
“I remember the Wimbledon and U.S. Open matches we played,” McEnroe said of his encounters with Connors and Borg. “I prefer to remember the ones I won. Everybody remembers the ones I lost.”
A three-time Wimbledon winner, McEnroe recalled his 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 triumph over Connors in 1984 as “the best match I ever played.”
“The ball was as big as a basketball,” he said. “Everything I did was like slow motion. I had all the time in the world.”
Connors lost to Borg in the Wimbledon final in 1977 and 1978 - two of the Swede’s five consecutive Wimbledon titles - but beat the righthander in the title match of the U.S. Open in both 1976 and 1978.
Both Vilas and Connors remem bered their epic battle in the Masters at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1978.
“That was an amazing crowd,” said
Vilas. “When we finished, the whole stadium was standing.”
The Challenge, the most prominent tournament of the 11-event, 35-and-over Champions Tour, will be played on clay, a surface that delights both Vilas and Borg, both of whom are considered clay-court specialists.
“When they asked me to play The Challenge, I said, ‘Count me in,”’ said Vilas. “Then, when I heard it was on clay, I liked it even more.”