19 hours ago
In 1975, Arthur Ashe Made His Point
Two nights before he played one of the most important tennis matches of his life, Arthur Ashe had dinner with three of his best friends.
It was in London in 1975, and Ashe was scheduled to play Jimmy Connors, the defending champion and world No. 1, in the Wimbledon final on Saturday. Ashe chose the Playboy Club, where the foursome could sit undisturbed at a table in the back.
That Thursday night, Ashe, Donald Dell, his attorney and manager, Charlie Pasarell and Freddie McNair, both players and friends of Ashe, exchanged pleasantries and then got down to business. They devised a game plan to disrupt Connors, shake up his rhythm and allow Ashe to control points rather than be controlled by an opponent nearly 10 years his junior. It was all antithetical to the big serving, groundstroke-pounding, sometimes reckless style Ashe was accustomed to playing.
'We told him, 'Arthur, this is what you need to do,'' Pasarell, now 81, who first met Ashe at the Orange Bowl junior championships when the two were teenagers, said by phone this month.
'First, he would serve out wide to Jimmy's two-handed backhand to pull him off the court. Then he would step in, hit a short ball with little pace to Jimmy's forehand. Giving dinks and junk to Jimmy would give him fits. All that worked especially well on grass where the ball would skid.'
The next morning, Dell, who was staying at the same hotel as Ashe, grabbed an envelope from the front desk and wrote on the back the three key points they had discussed the night before, including Ashe's liberal use of the lob whenever Connors would crowd the net. He left the note in Ashe's hotel mailbox.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
