Tennis expert Craig O'Shannessy visits the Live @ Wimbledon studio and rewinds the clock 40 years to discuss the classic 1975 final between Arthur Ashe and Jimmy Connors.
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Not mentioned in this analysis, is the fact that Connors had a 5-1 lifetime record against Ashe AND won all 3 subsequent matches against him. One was a walkover, but the other 2 were convincing wins. If, after Wimbledon, Ashe now had this ironclad formula for beating Connors, what happened? The fact is that so called tennis "expert", Craig O'Shannessy, and Mats Wilander, have an obvious agenda here to prove Craig's theory that it's more important to hit the ball "where the opponent doesn't want it vs. where I want to hit it" - or stated in more general terms, to play to the opponent's weakness vs. utilizing one's strength. The truth is that this is a simplistic formula/strategy that may succeed or fail on any given day depending on a variety of factors. O'Shannesy and Wilander never touch on how difficult it is to execute an off-pace strategy. It isn't easy to take pace off balls and keep them short and low. If you're off by just a hair, the ball will sit up, i.e. "fluff", and then your opponent has an easy put away. In addition, if Connors had his 1974 form (when he destroyed the aging Ken Rosewall, one of the all time masters of the low, slice backhand, in the finals of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open), he would likely have beaten Ashe too. Connors had an "all or nothing", flat game with little margin for error. If he was on, he'd punish short, low balls with deep, driving approach shots and easily put away the volleys. On that day, I agree, Ashe used the right strategy. However, in Ashe's subsequent losses to Connors, another strategy might have been better, or perhaps Connors was just playing too well for any change in strategy to have made a difference, or perhaps the 9 year age difference between the two was finally starting to show up. This last point was likely the main reason Wilander never lost to Connors. He was 12 years younger than Jimmy. As we see with Federer/Djokovic, when one hits one's mid 30s, skills start to decline ever so slightly and this tips the balance. Jimmy was hitting this wall just as Wilander was hitting his prime. A slight drop in foot speed would make the soft/low ball strategy more effective. Incidentally, Wilander apparently doesn't remember his career very well. He claims he played Connors 8 times in Davis Cup, ATP, and Grand Slams and never lost. But, according to the Fedex, ATP "Head to Head" comparison tool, Wilander and Connors only played 6 times (including the 1984 Davis Cup match) and never met in a grand slam. Also, Wilander claims that after Ashe utilized this strategy in 1975, everyone started doing it successfully - e.g. "Lendl started chipping the backhand low to Connors' forehand". However, Connors beat Lendl convincingly in both the 1982 and 1983 U.S. Open finals and, if you watch those matches, Lendl was coming over the backhand quite a bit. Connors also beat McEnroe, the king of off pace, feathery shots (that stay even lower on grass than hard courts), in the 1982 Wimbledon final, 7 years later. Wilander is right that practice partners want pace to get rhythm, so it's hard to practice these off pace shots consistently. It's also true that in the late 80s and early 90s, when Jimmy was well past his prime, Lendl used this low slice backhand strategy well against Connors. The point is, as stated above, you have to know when to do it and then be able to do it. It is not some ironclad formula that always works against certain types of players.
awesome comment
Very good comment and analysis with which I agree totally.
Ashe just out played Connors
Marshall Duncan: Great comment!. Remember US Open 1975, Orantes beat Jimmy in three sets on clay. That was another classic match with a beautiful tennis by Orantes, defeating the evidently more powerful Connors. In another classic match, the US Open 1988 Final, Wilander used extensively his slice backhand (a shot the didn´t have before) to beat the power of Ivan Lendl. In that match Lendl doubled the number of unforced errors of Wilander. And Mats, who was a grinder baseliner, always in important points attacked the net, with great results. Ahhhh, tennis is the most beautiful sport. Cheers!
I agree Connors had a bad day, he missed a ton of easy balls not just low ones
What I love about the old tennis matches is the players could play at the net. Nowadays tennis is 5 sets of baseline volleys
I feel cheated, it's like they're only using half their potential.
Nowadays players could still play serve and volley if they wanted - 100% . The new technologies are helping both - baseliners and attacking players . And by the way my opinion is RG is the best of the 4 GS tournaments (still 3 and not 4 - in all truth ) for sure not Wimbledon where the ball takes the odd direction depending by the sprout of grass it hits...NONSENSE
@@johnperrigo6474 who cares- the most important thing IS WINNING - and whoever wins always plays better than the opponents-ALWAYS
Baseline groundstrokes!
Ashe served and volleyed incredibily well in that match.
This is just wonderful
the great expert, in Wimbledon he didn't come even close to a semifinal and he talks about the only official victory for Ashe in his life against Connors
Well he is an expert of Winning against Connors at least. Not on Grass though, but it was the only match Ashe played Connors on grass as well.
He mentioned being 8-0 against Connors.
Ashe's game plan was to be a pusher and it worked! I love the comment, "lack of power" is a weapon." Fantastic stuff! Great analysis by the experts! Mats comments are fantastic and he was just stating the facts. The negative comments from people are ridiculous.
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@Andrew Ernest flixportal :D
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Here is Ashe discussing his strategy on that match ! kzhead.info/sun/dLSIh8-MoZatqKs/bejne.html
Interesting discussion!
Mats is my fav. tennis player ever.
Arthur was a very, very good player. Won a few majors. He was a class act. Jimmy was a top ten player ever. But on this day Arthur did what he had to do.
Wow - this must be the "I hate Wilander" club! That's a shame. 5 to 0, versus 8 to 0, I think the point is that he never lost to Connors. I should also point out that John Newcombe played very similarly in the Australian Open final in 1975, which Ashe would have seen or known about, but the side story is fascinating.
+MMT Sr H2H doesn't matter. Connors went 0-6 against Boris Becker - but it was an inevitability given his age and how long he played. Doesn't mean Becker was a better player, just that he was beating a player 15 years old his senior. Wilander himself is over a decade Connors' junior as well. Never had to face him in his prime.
Did I say he was better? All I said was that he never lost to Connors, so he's in a position to comment on how he beat him. And that was in the context of contradicting all the criticisms of Wilander. By the way, I should point out the following: In 1982 Wilander won Roland Garros, and Connors won Wimbledon and the US Open - that was the second best year of Connors' career. In 1983 Connors won the USO, and Wilander won the Australian. In 1984 Connors made the semifinals at Roland Garros and the US Open, and the final at Wimbledon - he lost all 3 matches to McEnroe who was #1 and lost 3 matches out of 85 that year, and Wilander won the Australian. I'm not sure what you consider Connors' prime, but those were pretty good years for both of them, and just because Connors was older doesn't mean they weren't contemporaries when they were both 2 of the best players in the world. I know this issue of people's primes is a hot topic because of the obsession with Federer and his record against Djokovic, Nadal...even Murray to some degree, but it strikes me as a bit ridiculous to argue that Connors was past his best when he played Wilander just because he was older, because as I've demonstrated above, they were both pretty good. In fact, Wilander had only one better year than any of those 3 where their results were very similar, and that was in 1988 - by your logic, Wilander was no where near his prime...but that's your logic, not mine. To me it's enough to say that Wilander beat him, never lost him, and most importantly had a method to beating him that apparently went back as far as 1975, which was the whole point of this video.
+MMT Sr Hahahah. Very well said, mate! They were at the top of the game around the same time. Mats obviously has an effective game plan against Jimmy. It works! Enough said, right?
Wilander was a very good player, and nobody hates him, but considering that his best result in Wimbledon was quarterfinalist, he shouldn´t say much about other players who did much better than him. Wilander was a champion, but nothing of the sort of Borg or Connors
@@alessandroalessandro6771 Wilander, Djokovic and Nadal are the only players to have one more than one grand slam on three different surfaces. Wilander won 7 grand slams, only one less than Connors. Wilander is perfectly qualified to speak. Let's not forget too that Connors never made it past the semis of the French.
love the discussion of strategy here....very insightful
All B.S.
Connors had very flat ground strokes. So it was a simple case of short and low and watch the ball go long. And those horrible metal Wilson rackets had no feel. Like swinging a piece of railway line.
Say that to Connors who won a 107 tournaments with that "horrible" racket, still the all time record!
literally like he spent the day before going through time and the history of bizarre grand slam finals. Unbelievable genius
It was a super-intelligent plan. Like Kryptonite
Wilander got carried away a bit: Connors beat him 6-4, 6-0 at the Suntory Cup in Japan, in 1985. True, it wasn't an ATP event, so Wilander was correct that he never lost to Connors in ATP tournaments. Still, he might have mentioned the above loss.
The event doesn't count neither does ITF
It was an exhibition. Nobody plays seriously in an exhibition. They're there to entertain the crowd and earn $$$$$. That's why they don't count.
The only FACTS needed to be discussed about this match are these: Connors TORE A KNEE LIGAMENT earlier in the tournament & had a worsening STRESS FRACTURE. He was advised not to play the final. Within a week he was back in California with his LEG IN A CAST. End of match analysis. Connors OWNED Ashe. Connors beat Ashe in all 7 other ATP recognized matches. After his 1st win age 20, never losing a set, excluding this match that never should have happened, til a 5-7 set in his last win. Overall, including non-atp matches, many of which were serious competitions, I think Connors record over Ashe was 16-3.
wrong, completely wrong your match analysis because Connors reached the final , if the injury had a real effect on him He wouldnt have been able to play and reach the final, simple as that - also S Williams owned Sharapova but Sharapova won the Wimbledon final 2004
Please show the picture of Connors in a leg cast? It would have been world news. Then explain how he went 82-8 playing a full season of tennis in1975 with tore knee ligaments?
Connors played many times the final in the Championships, and won twice, but apparently he was not good enough for a player like this, who only reached the quarter finals. By the way, Connors and Ashe played seven times, official matches, that final was the only time Ashe won
Btw...Ashe was running around the world doing more important stuff than tennis while Connors was getting Evert (and other women) pregnant.
Connors had a severe leg-injury (mentioned by the media back then) and not only did he miss the dead and slow balls, it was a horror show of unforced errors on Connors' part throughout. Also, Connors beat Ashe 3 times after that in their remaining meetings, which makes me think that no spell was broken by Ashe in 1975. Bonus: here is my all-time favourite ATP players' list: 1/ Ken Rosewall 2/ Rafa Nadal 3/ Jimmy Connors
Connors would have gladly traded his 3 wins against Ashe for the 1975 Wimbledon championship.
A severe leg injury? A severe injury is a broken limb or detached tendon etc. Connors wasn't severely injured. Like every player he had niggling injuries.
I'd respect Wilander more if he just came out and said he couldn't stand Connors guts!
I believe Connors beat Wilander in the Japan Suntory Cup, in straight sets, sometime in the '80s. Maybe not an ATP event but they all count. Also, Wilander is wrong about Connors not having a good overhead - he hardly ever missed one and really belted them!
Diatonic1958 When Connors first appeared he had this weird roundarm overhead, as described by Wilander, and also a pretty weird twisty no-power serve. He went to Fred Stolle and got them both fixed pretty quick. They were both long gone by 1975.
Nope, they don't count. The suntory event was an exhibition, which nobody takes seriously. The players are there to entertain the crowd and earn some $$$ from the massive appearance fees.
Well mackinaca change the pace because he used that Continental grip and I'm wondering why he couldn't give Connors more problem but somehow Connor's light kind of fed into mackinos Pace I think Mackinaw came too much Pace because if he took the pace off I think Mackinaw has the type of game like ash that he could have taken them out but that might have been a matter of poor strategy I don't know or Connor's I don't know how he managed to deal with the drop shots at mcenroe hits and taking the pace off should give Connors trouble but the pace balls definitely
Wow. I wonder if that work against a champion today.
No mention that Connors had a fractured leg?
It's never been corroborated. He wrote that in his memoir (40 yrs later). He shared the same agent as Ashe (Donald Dell) and he said that Connors never mentioned it to him.
I should hope not because that would have been complete and utter bs.
@@uncletony6210 It's been confirmed by outside sources other than Jimmy's autobiography that he was advised to withdraw to not risk permanent damage to his knee. If that isn't a handicap I don't know what is.
@@slihb Who cares? He chose to play. After 40 odd years he comes up with this story. Very Connors. Classless, even if it's true. Because Ashe outwitted him and his ego still can't handle it.
@@slihb No one needs people today to confirm anything. Connors serious leg injury was reported at the time & he was in a cast a few days after the tournament. The giant media overseers the control information bury inconvenient history that doesn't fit their political agenda.
Ash applied slow techniks because Connors was very fast . This is the best strategically won a match. Ash was a thorough gentleman and very classic player. Then connors understood later and he beat Ash on other courts.
Wrong
@@1158scott no he is right with his assumption
Analysis: Connors was cocky and overconfident. He got his tail kicked.
Connors beat Willander 6-4, 6-0 in Tokio, Suntory Cup 1986 final. Wilander had beaten Lendl in semis 6-4,6-4 and Connors had beaten Edberg in three sets. Perhaps not an official Tournament, but extremely important for the players, with a ton of money at stake. The idea that Wilander was unbeaten against Connors is misleading and Wilander, a very good player, should not even mention, Connors was number one five years in a row and Wilander would have stood a very small chance against him by that time
That's nonsense. Exhibitions don't count at all - they play a lot of them every year. There was nothing special about the suntory cup.
wilander would have destroyed the best connors on red clay anyway- DESTROYED
Yes that Connor's nobody could beat Connors with speed he could hard balls he loved he could just time that cuz he hit so flat he can just powder he takes the pace and he uses it so well cuz it was technique but when somebody text the pace off certain balls keeps it low mixes it up with junk that's the only people that stand a chance against Connors I mean the fact they beat mackenroe it's incredible so I'm in even Mackinac couldn't chunk and mix it up enough I think to cause him a problem
Interesting discussion for sure, but Matts casually dismisses 8 time slam winner and 109 tournament winner Connors in a kind of odd way. It doesn’t quite make sense. I’m not offended. I don’t have a dog in the debate. But it’s odd.
Mats Wilander very conveniently forgot that a +45 old Connors beat the living daylights out of a +33 year old on the senior tour. In fact Connors beat Wilander more than one time one the senior tour if my memory is correct. Connors with a a bad hip, bad knee, and a bad wrist, and still managed that And that Connors won Wimbledon twice, Mats didn't win Wimbledon. As for having a bad overhead, Connors had a very good, solid overhead. For a a player that has won 8 GS Connors seems to have the worst shots ever, bad serve, bad forehand, bad overhead etc etc. I wonder how the guy ever made it into those GS' titles and all the rest of them as well! Why is everybody trashtalking Connors these days? He is one of the best players ever, and back at the top of his career there wasn't a whole lot of players that could beat him. He also had a very long career, not something that Wilander can boast with right. Sour grapes? In this case I would certainly say so. Think it is a shame that BBC invites idiots to their commenting for the, and Mats Wilander is an idiot!
+Kevin He has lost to Connors, on the senior tour. But I made my sour grape comment about Wilander not having a very long career and Connors had one of the longest career.
+Uncle Tony But Wilander was right about playing Connors. You are mixing two different stories. And btw, I hate playing pushers like Wilander.
+Marie Larsson You are wrong. The Senior Tour is a completely different story. I do not like the playing style of Wilander at all. Pro Tennis is about winning. Tennis is so great and interesting, because you can win with completely different styles.
Sorry, I confused your name.
Connors played far under his normal level ! He made awfully many easy faults! Wilander never lost to Connors but except of the Davis cup the matches were very close! And over all: Connors was over his peak, over 32 years , when he played Wilander! So hold the ball flat, as we in Germany say!
Arthur ashes forehand wasn't as hard as other players so it wasn't that hard of a forehand but his back and apparently he hit it harder than most players on the circuit cuz he hit it like a fly sweater she had a really loose swing and a big take back and so he hit it out front of his body and really he had an advantage over all the other players he hit that harder but it but his forehand was weaker nobody else everybody could hit twice as hard on their forehand side than Ash
CONNORS HAD AN INJURED LEG READ HIS BOOK AND WAKE UP BOYS
Connors never limped for the entire match
@@rishijai injections pills
@@kingarthurusatenniscoach1415 connors never limped in any of the matches he played to reach the final
@@andreasmissiroli6915 read his book he was injured
@@kingarthurusatenniscoach1415 I got his book 'the outsider' . Had he been seriously injured he wouldnt have reached the final ...a broken leg - R-I-D-I-C-O-L-O-U-S...He lost because that day Ashe played better, simple as that
Mats was a great player but connors was better.
Some of this isn't true. Ashe had already stated, prior to the night before, that he was going to do something different, so he didn't get it all from the phone call. Newcombe had dinked Jimmy around a bit already in the AO that year, although there was plenty of power play too. And these TV people also seem to think that Ashe invented the short return onto the shoelaces, when Rosewall had already been doing it for 20 years, and all the greats before him back to the year dot. Ashe played a very good match but Connors had a horror day, unbelievable error rate, especially for a low error-rate guy, and not just due to Ashe's tactics. And in fact Rosewall had played exactly the same stuff, probably at a better level than Ashe, against Connors at USO 1974, where it did not work.
Big Arthur Ashe fan, but Connors lost because he played horribly.
Wilander is a liar. Connors beat Wilander 6-3, 6-0 in Suntory cup final 1986.
No he's not. The suntory cup was an exhibition. Nobody counts them. They're just players messing around to entertain the crowd and earning $$$
@@th8257 apparently some one counts them trump 2024 the sea was angry that day my friends ......
Ashe played like a wimp that day, giving no pace to the ball. Jimbo was in a terrible day and that was it. Lamest final ever.
Ridiculous comment, Ashe played very smartly, hardly a wimp. This sounds like someone who would hit every ball as hard as he can mindlessly. To play with intelligence and hit with less power and with touch to his opponents weaknesses is a strength, not a weakness. It's smart to hit with no pace, silly comment.