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Jimmy Connors: 12 things I learned from Connors memoir 'The Outsider'

Here are a dozen interesting items from "The Outsider: A Memoir" by tennis great Jimmy Connors.

9. High-stakes challenge matches

STEFAN WERMUTH/REUTERS
Former Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova waves as she arrives on Centre Court to watch a match at Wimbledon in London June 25, 2011.

  • By Ross Atkin Staff writer

A comment that Australian great Rod Laver made about Connors in the mid 1970s, saying he “probably thinks he’s the next-best thing to 7 Up,” so irritated Connors that it wound up sparking a $100,000, “winner take all” showdown against Laver in Las Vegas in 1975. The match was played in a specially built 4,000-seat stadium that Connors says resembled a boxing ring.

The precedent for such a show-bizzy challenge match was the 1973 Battle of the Sexes match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, won by King. Connors proved that the changing of the generational guard was complete, beating Laver in four sets in a best-of-five-set match. Despite the winner-take-all hype, Laver made out OK, too, quietly collecting $60,000.

Connors would play numerous challenge matches thereafter, including his own battle-of-the-sexes match in 1993 against Martina Navratilova.  On that occasion, his penchant for gambling went to the ridiculous extreme of placing a $1 million bet on himself to win with a Vegas bookie. He got off to a slow start in the match in which he was not permitted second and Navratilova enjoyed a wider-than-normal target area for her shots. Still, Connors prevailed 7-5, 6-2.

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Mark Sappenfield
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