When I chatted with Jimmy Connors the other night at The Billies, the first thing I did was plug this new blog! Then I asked this great champion and the current coach of Andy Roddick if he felt that professional tennis was getting snubbed by mainstream daily newspapers these days.
"It's kind of gone to the back page, a line here and a line there. For a game that attracts so many fans and corporate sponsorships to get so little coverage is mind-boggling," Connors said.
Front page attention was routine during the Connors hey-dey in the 1970s and 80s when he competed against rivlas like Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe on a regular basis on his way to winning five U.S. Opens, two Wimbledons and an Australian Open as well as close to 100 other tour titles.
He believes Roddick has the potential to bring back that sort of attention to the game.
"He certainly has the opportunity, the game and the attitude," Connors said. "He's got it all so he just has to go out there and put things together and win the Wimbledons and the U.S. Opens and to bring that kind of excitement and electricity back into the game."
Connors presented an award at The Billies with a pregnant Lindsay Davenport and when the teleprompter failed, he took it with good humor saying "I never trusted those things anyway." He also talked to Lindsay's expanding tummy and urged the unborn child to take up a two-handed backhand.
It was a charming and relaxed Connors and his respect for Billie Jean King has only increased since the days when her won his first U.S. Open back in 1974 and King took the women's title.
"Back then I was a little bit younger and was very interested more in her game and her attitude and what she brought to the tennis and the way she got through her matches and the attitude that she brought there," Connors told me before the eent. "What she was doing behind the scenes really filtered back to the guys. But for me, being young and trying to make my mark in tennis, I really didn't [follow her off-court work] until later on when things really started going forward. Once she beat Bobby Riggs, there was a whole new attitude and generation that was born."
Connors' regard for King was evident last summer when he joined old nemesis John McEnroe and former fiancee Chris Evert as part of the ceremony marking the naming of the U.S. National Tennis Center after Billie Jean King. Connors remarks were heartfelt and moving.
"I don't think there's been that electricity and excitement around an evening at the U.S. Open in quite some time and nobody deserves it more than her, that's for sure."
I told Jimmy it was fun to see him and Chrissie together again at the U.S. Open.
Connors: [laughs] Well, maybe for some people it was fun. [laughs more] Yeah, it's been a long time ago for both of us. A lot has happened to both of us along the way. To still have an opportunity to see each other and be friends is always good."
Evert and Connors were both number one in the sport when they were engaged in 1974, even winning an unprecedented "love double" by both winning at Wimbledon that year. By the next year, they had broken up. Jimmy married his wife Patti in 1979. Evert married John Lloyd the same year but they divorced in 1987. Chrissie married Andy Mill the next year and had three sons. She and Mill recently split after 19 years of marriage.