[Nimi]

I wasnt around back then, & i heard so much praising...
Was it really that good?

 

[TheBoiledEgg]

yep it was pretty awesome

well i don't remember the 70's was too young
but the 80's

McEnroe/Connors then along came Lendl (Mr Robot supreme)
but my fav two players of the 80's
Stefan Edberg ...... poetry in motion
and Henri Leconte..... he's a magician, flair, artistry and a BIG CLOWN on court too (such a shame he always had a bad back

I wasn't a fan of Becker ( i quite loved it when he lost

Wilander bored you to death but he was very good at doing that

the depth of the tour wasn't as it is now but the names of the playerswho were good was pretty long.

 

[Nimi]

Were they any strong rivalaries personally?
Who was Henri Leconte?

 

[TheBoiledEgg]

Lendl and McEnroe hated each other
as did McEnroe & Connors

didn't everyone hate Mc ????
Borg and Mc had some great matches, then Borg got bored and retired.

Rivalries were better too

Leconte....... you don't know who he is ??
have you seen the Champions Tour ??

He was left-handed and a pure joy to watch, he got to #3 or #4 in about 1986.
Ask the frenchies on the board or look up his name on search engines

 

[TennisHack]

Egg--yeah, I think everyone hated JohnnyMac. He certainly had the antics to deserve it.

I wasn't around in the 70s and was too young to pay attention in the 80s, but I've heard several people say Borg was one of the greatest. He did pull off the elusive Roland Garros-Wimbledon double what, 3 years in a row? He won 5 of one and 6 of the other in his entire career. I haven't seen him play, but he's very endearing to me because he just left. No antics, no loud speech declaring his reservation for the game. He left just as quietly as he played

There was a 10-minute special on him during the US coverage of Wimbledon last year. It summed him up nicely, and I kinda wish you could have seen it. Would have done a better job than I did

 

[KCVH]

That was a fantastic time. Especially the duels Connors vs. Mcenroe. The best returner against the best volleyer. As well the outburstings of both. More than once they had words. In the 80's you had more serve & volley display. The likes of Cash, Mcenroe, Edberg and Becker all won GS's. Players without a GS win like Leconte were amusing. The stylish Leconte, then the Cat Miloslav Mecir great returner and wrong footer of the game.Pity Leconte/Mecir never won a GS. The tennis 80's sound was a joy to watch.

 

[Professor14]

The 70s and 80s

I disagree with one reply that said the depth of the tour is deeper now. The 70s and 80s were every bit as deep. In the 70s of course you had Borg, McEnroe, Connors, but you also had Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Vitas Gerulaitis, Ille Nastase, Guillermo Vilas, and the end of the Australian dynasties with Rosewall, Newcombe, and Laver! Not to mention players like Brian Teacher, the Gullicksons, Jan Kodes, Taner, Dent, et al. It was a great era!

Another point of diagreement I have is that not everyone hated John McEnroe. John, Bjorn Borg and Vitas Gerulaitis were the best of friends. John and Jimmy got a long off the court (but from all accounts Connors is a hard guy to get close to). Lendl always seemed like the black sheep of the tour, but that can be attributed partially to his competitive philosophy that, similar to Connors, never got close to anyone. Lendl also wasn't a media darling like Connors or Borg, and his accent and acceptance of eastern Europeans at that time was difficul for him to become popular.

 

[alfajeffster]

I disagree with the depth perception about today's players vs. the players of the 70s, especially. Rod Laver won his second Grand Slam in 1969, and played some of the best tennis ever in the early 70s at the WCT event in Dallas (vs. Ken Rosewall). The Australian men were the best in the world, and had a dynasty which was largely fostered by Harry Hopman from the 1950s all the way through John Newcombe's lone Australian Open win in the mid-70s (over Jimmy Connors). The tennis boom that resulted from the Battle of the Sexes in 1973 spurned the greatest few years of popularity and depth that tennis has ever seen. The period between 1973-1983 was the best, in my opinion. After the mid-80s, the introduction of the oversized frame and the new style of slap-shot winners tennis kind of ruined it for me. I'm all for regulating the size of the frame, not returning to wood. I think with today's players using a standard size frame (make if out of glass, I don't care), you'd see a return to the chess match that the game of tennis can be!