A classic match up. Jimmy the baseliner vs McEnroe serve and Volley. They are the top five American men's players of all time along with Sampras, Agassi and Tilden in my view.
yup - high def. and great camera work + 3 of the best most relaxed announcers ever - none of that can you believe that - Genius! horse bleep that we hear today
always enjoyed seeing Mcenroe , Conners, Bjorg and Lendl play , this is one of the top greatest matches and semi finals of any major tournament . Mcenroe was very calm this game . Nice to see these classic games as well as the present day ones , all great memories
In my book, this is one of the best matches in tennis history. I would probably rank it at no. 2 right behind the French Open final of the same year between Lendl and McEnroe.
@ ahmad. Connors and McEnroe didn't play against each other in a Wimbledon final in the 1970's. Their 2 Wimbledon finals against each other were in 1982 (Connors winning in 5 sets) and 1984 (McEnroe winning in straight sets).
so cool to flash back and watch these matches. especially Connors and McEnroe - 2 brats not sharing in the sandbox. entertaining and funny - especially looking back. Connors had the best footwork and effective form -he hops to turn and lands in the wide foot, solid stance. ready to swing, or swinging. McEnroe serve and volleys tactics are so deadly. they both make the work seem easy.... until hour 3 or so. anyway - this is wonderful. thanks for posting.
I think I liked Pat, Tony, and Mary Carillo more, but these guys were awesome. Id probably put Dick Enberg and Bud Collins at the same level, but thats it.
The single greatest day of tennis ever. Four matches on Armstrong Stadium court(The main court then) and ALL of the m went the maximum number of sets. A seniors's mens match the Mens Semifinals and the Women's Final. This math didn't Start till 7:28 PM ET. CBS was due to be off the air long before this. So CBS had tennis for over 12 hours that Saturday.
McEnroe's volleys and groundies always looked like his arms were held onto his shoulder with a safety pin only. No ligaments or tendons at all. Yet it was spectacular to watch. 31:09 is one of the sickest volleys of all time btw.
I know right? Can't imitate that shit. 23:26 he just effortlessly places the ball exactly where it was supposed to be with the low-tension Max200. Still my favorite to watch after all these years. Jimmy didn't keep playing the "new" racket but Edberg, Sampras and Roger sure did! Also the way he hit the next FH return of serve and caught Jimmy out totally.
@@KingCast65 That lil punch forehand return where Mac hit it deep in the corner to Connors' backhand and would come in on it? Yeah, that was sweet. BTW, Connors return in this match was absolutely incredible as well. As Ive said in other posts, its one of the most mind boggling facts that the 84 US Open would be the last slam he ever won. He was SO dominant in 84, going 82-3, and really should have won all 3 slams he entered. If you had the cash to bet, you could be a millionaire betting everyone that this tournament would be his last slam. Sadly for Mac though, this was it. To me, while id never call him fat or out of shape, he never looked as fit as he did in the 84 Open, and the power game with the oversized graphite racquets was coming. But man, it was great while it lasted. Dude was a unicorn, and when you combine his style with the angry outbursts, which I kind of liked as a kid, McEnroe was so fun to watch. If you find a time machine, let me know. We can grab a few beers and watch this match live in Louis Armstrong.
@@chocolatetownforever7537 Yah man and his personal life + the advent of the power game did him in. And of course he never should have lost to Lendl at FO that emboldened Lendl to the max. I've met him three times, he was always nice to me even though the time I was at this tournament for awhile I was VERY close to net in '90 at the last tourney he won. He picks his favorites I would say and I'm just glad he led me slide or it could have been very embarrassing. Sadly the film did not load properly so I missed out on about a dozen great BW volley shots that day. christopher-king.blogspot.com/2012/02/kingcast-and-mrjohnmcenroe-present-john.html Also there's always a "but" and this time it's but Andre at Wimby '92 Mac would have won, and his Aussie '92 run was solid too until he fucked up, could have won that too.
All respect to the power, shot-making, and athleticism of today's players, but, possibly because Mac and Jimmy came up using wooden rackets of minuscule head size--and even the graphite ones they were using by '84 were much heavier and less powerful than today's ultra-light models--their strokes appear to the eye less extreme and closer to those of the mere mortal club player. Ultimately, watching this match again so many years later, you are left to marvel at the precision it would have taken to hit shots with as much power and placement as they manage repeatedly to do without the benefit of excessive spin. Thanks so much for this. Hope you will be posting the rest soon.
I hope you've seen his other uploads like the only color version of Mac/Vitas '79 I've ever seen, besides watching it 37 years ago right. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tjhuudOw7u0.htmlm5s
23:26 as that point progresses you see the ease of McEnroe's placement off the BH slice deep to Jimmy's BH it's so fucking beautiful. And Jimmy still almost had the pass.
This was a great match. It wasn't really dramatic. I remember watching this live and I always thought McEnroe was in control despite it going to 5 sets. But as far as high level tennis from start to finish, this is about as good as it gets. McEnroe was at his pinnacle. Maybe he wasn't quite as great in this match as he was in the Wimbledon final, but it was pretty close. Yet Connors took him to 5 sets.
@ RonnieLeeDuck. A player is not "always in control" if a match goes the 5-set distance! McEnroe was not "always in control" of his 1984 U.S. Open semifinal match against Connors. That match went back-and-forth with both players playing very well throughout that match. It was arguably the best match between them in their entire rivalry. All that match lacked was a dramatic finish to the 5th set. McEnroe got the early break of serve in the 5th set and rode it out to the end of the match.
@@michaelbarlow6610 Yes, each set featured one service break. It was a close match without the need for tie-breakers. The final set seemed a little anti-climatic, I suppose. The commentators were pretty good too.
@ Anton Baludo. The 1984 U.S. Open semifinal match between Connors and McEnroe was and is an interesting contrast to their 1980 U.S.Open semifinal match because in the earlier 1980 match, when Connors went on an 11-game run from the 3rd set into the 4th set, it seemed as if McEnroe had become so disheartened by Connors superb play that he appeared to be tanking at that point in the match when he kept hitting "junk" shots by constantly underspinning his backhand to Connors . It may, however, have been that he was not mentally tanking, but was actually attempting to get Connors out of his rhythm by taking pace off the ball so as to get back into the match. That 1980 match had a 5th set tiebreaker which the 1984 match lacked, but the tiebreaker was totally anticlimactic because McEnroe jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the tiebreaker and tennis fans realized right then and there that there was no way Connors was going to come back to win the match. Connors did proceed to win 3 points in a row to make the score 5-4 or 6-4 in favor of McEnroe, but then McEnroe closed out the tiebreaker.
@@michaelbarlow6610 Yes, good analysis. I felt sorry for Connors getting so humiliated at the 1984 Wimbledon Final. If you are going to lose at the #1 tennis Tournament in the World, then at least do not lose so humiliatingly. That being said, McEnroe was also winning at Roland Garros, but I think he ran out of fuel against Ivan Lendl. I was for McEnroe getting the Slam in 1984. He had all the finesse and skills. Lendl and Borg had the endurance of Marathon Runners. McEnroe simply ran out of energy against Lendl. You remember that they made a movie out of the McEnroe/Borg rivalry. Lendl and Connors were not featured in this.
Fascinating. Tennis was so much more enjoyable when the strategy of coming to the net and the lob were part of the game. Now the men just stand at the baseline and pound the crap out of the ball.
A little glimpse of what's to come when the announcer talks about the Aussie player winning the US Open Juniors that year... He mentions how he beat the young German boy Becker. :)
@ Christopher King. One of the great joys of watching the U.S. Open tennis matches from the National Tennis Center on television from 1978-1990's (especially from 1978--1980's) was that both CBS Sports and USA Network utilized the "down low" camera angle from behind the near baseline which provided the TV viewer with a "you are there" feeling! Also from 1978-early 1980's, CBS Sports utilized a beautiful camera technique of switching camera angles during a point in which, for example, the low, near baseline camera angle would show McEnroe or Connors hitting a forehand or backhand approach shot to Borg's backhand and right after showing McEnroe or Connors hitting that approach shot, they would then quickly switch to an up-close camera angle in front of Borg showing Borg hitting his two-handed backhand passing shot, and then once again the camera angle would switch back to the low baseline camera angle to show McEnroe or Connors' volley! Sadly for some unknown reason, CBS Sports stopped utilizing that quick switching of camera angles just described some time in either the mid or late 1980's. I wish that ESPN would utilize that quick switching of camera angles technique in their telecasts of the U.S. Open tennis tournament.
@@michaelbarlow6610 Yep my memory had faded but yes that's just how it was done back then. Here's a Vitas-Mac match with some of that from '81. Nowadays they have better cameras but less quality coverage. Quite an oxymoron isn't it. An old high school friend of mine is now a TV Cameraman mostly tennis.
@ Christopher King. That "quick switch" TV camera technique utilized by CBS Sports during U.S. Open matches from 1978 through the early 1980's used to provide an added excitement to watching a U.S. Open singles match which sadly is missing in today's broadcasts of tennis on TV.
@@michaelbarlow6610 OMG absolutely. Well that plus the distinct personalities and animosities... gotta love it. The time Connors charged Mac as he stood there and picked his strings trying not to react.... unbelievable!
@ Christopher King. I think that the match you are referring to when Connors put his finger in McEnroe 's face and McEnroe shoved Connors' hand away and they almost got into a fist fight was the Michelob tournament in Chicago. They also exchanged heated words with each other in their 1984 French Open semifinal match.
Interesting how John Newcombe mentions how mark Kratzman had just beaten "a German boy" Boris Becker for the boys title. It just shows how meteoric Becker's rise was - 9 months later he would win the men's singles at Wimbledon
@ Chris Wylie. Actually the lighting at the Louis Armstrong Stadium at the National Tennis Center (now called the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center) was very good at the U.S.Open during the 1980's. I remember sitting in the lowest seats behind the baseline during a men's singles match during a night session at one of the U.S. Open tennis tournaments during the mid-1980's and was very impressed with how good the oncourt lighting was from the floodlights above the stadium court.
How good was Mac..... seriously that good without today technology. And wth the speed of tod technology ,he would have been pretty good...right Thank you for video. Any way to get cleaner sharper quality
Connors never liked the Pro-staff, which led him back to the steel racket again after this season. If he had tried the Dunlop Mcenroe used got have been a better choice, it was very flexible.
The Dunlop Max200G tennis racket was actually a fairly stiff racket with its' 100% injection-molded, graphite construction. I was able to play test that tennis racket one time and was impressed with its' solid ball control. It was not a flexible racket like a fiberglass racket or a wood racket. One of the disconcerting characteristics of that racket was that it absorbed the impact of the tennis ball so well that you couldn't feel the ball hit the strings--just like the Yamaha Secret4 wide body 100% graphite racket many years later. The other annoying thing about the version of the Dunlop Max200G midsize racket that was available in sporting goods stores was its' squareish configuration handle. It unfortunately lacked either an American style configuration grip with wide 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock panels (e.g., a Wilson rackets-shaped handle) or a European-configuration grip with slightly narrower in width 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock panels (e.g., an Estusa rackets-shaped handle). Dunlop came out with the Dunlop Max300I graphite midsize racket sometime after the Max200G racket was introduced to the tennis market in 1983 which as I recall was supposed to be a stiffer version of the Max200G racket. Interesting thing was that it was actually Slazenger that manufactured the graphite rackets in the Dunlop Max series of midsize tennis rackets during the 1980's, but the parent corporation Dunlop insisted that the Dunlop name be put on those tennis rackets because Dunlop was a more widely recognized corporate name than Slazenger.
@@michaelbarlow6610 When I compared the pro staff with my Dunlop, I found the staff as stiffer, however it was off the shelf products and the strings were not very expensive. Connors didnt find anything he really liked until Prince Mono(!). Today I think the manufacturer could have helped out more.
@ SuperHammaren. I don't doubt that the Wilson Pro Staff Graphite/Kevlar 85 square-inch head- size midsize racket was probably stiffer than the Dunlop Max200G 85 square-inch head size, 100% graphite midsize racket because even though the Dunlop Max200G racket was wider (20 or 22 mm. wide above the racket handle) than the Wilson Pro Staff Graphite/Kevlar racket (18 mm. wide above the racket handle) and technically speaking was the first widebody racket on the tennis market even though it was not referred to or considered as a widebody racket in 1984 , because as I recall, the Pro Staff Graphite/Kevlar racket , like the Wilson Jack Kramer Graphite/Fiberglass 85 square-inch head- size midsize racket was constructed of braided fibers which would make the Pro Staff racket stiffer than a standard construction graphite racket in which the graphite fibers are layed down in long, longitudinal strips (in what was called a "sandwich design" back then) rather than in a braided (i.e., basketweave) or interwoven (i.e., rope) design. But the Dunlop Max200G racket which was unique from other graphite rackets because of its' graphite injection-molded construction, had good stiffness overall without being too stiff like the Wilson Ultra2 Graphite/Boron 85 square-inch head-size midsize racket was or like the Estusa Laser Graphite/Boron 85 square- inch head-size midsize racket was.
@ SuperHammaren. Thanks for the compliment! For many years I have thought from time-to-time about writing a book about the great tennis rackets from the 1970's-1980's but since that would require renting and/or purchasing a large number of tennis rackets to playtest them all (beyond the tennis rackets that I played with during my tennis-playing years) that would entail an enormous expenditure of money which I can't afford . One of the best books ever written about tennis equipment was written during the late 1970's or very early 1980's titled "Tennis Equipment" by Steve Fiott. Superb book! Another very good book published during the 1970's was "The Tennis Catalog" which (in terms of tennis rackets) only examined wood and metal rackets (and possibly some fiberglass rackets like the Arthur Ashe Competition racket). I remember that many, many years ago either Tennis Magazine or World Tennis Magazine in one of its' issues had a poster-like chart which was put together by a tennis equipment manufacturer (possibly either Head or Yonex or Prince) that showed and described all the different types of tennis racket construction (i.e., braided, interwoven, layered, or chopped fiber designs). Unfortunately I don't remember what issue of that magazine or what year that issue was published by that magazine.
