The 1975 Gentlemen's final pitted the brash, abrasive and
sometimes uncouth defending champion and No.1 seed, Jimmy
Connors, against Arthur Ashe, seeded sixth and tennis' ultimate
gentleman. It proved to be one of Wimbledon's greatest finals.
Going into the match, Connors was the heavy favourite.
He was at the top of his game and in the six matches leading
to the meeting, he hadn't lost a set. His closest encounter
was in the second round when Vijay Amritraj pushed him 9-8,
6-0, 8-6. Ashe, though having played well that spring, was
on the downside of his career. His path to the final was
rougher than Connors', dropping sets to Bob Hewitt in the
first round; Graham Stilwell in the fourth and Bjorn Borg
in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals, he survived a
5-7, 6-4, 7-5, 8-9, 6-4 test with the No. 16 seed, Tony
Roche, who had upset Ken Rosewall, seeded second, earlier
in The Championships.
In his book, "The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth
Century", Steve Flink recalls that at breakfast the
morning of the Connors contest, Ashe told his friend, Dr.
Doug Stein, that he had the feeling he couldn't lose.
The reason was a strategy that had been refined at dinner
the night before with Donald Dell, Charlie Pasarell, Marty
Riessen and Fred McNair. Ashe had called former Davis Cup
coach Dennis Ralston and they made a list of things to concentrate
on. At dinner, the list was amended and Ashe left with five
or six key points written on a piece of paper that he looked
at on the changeovers during the match.
For the first time in their career meetings, Ashe did not
try to hit with Connors. He hooked his serve wide to the
two-handed backhand of his left-handed opponent and he took
pace off his pounding, often error-producing ground strokes.
More importantly, Ashe exploited Connors' weakness - the
low forehand. Time and again he caressed a shot that forced
Connors to dig a reply out of the turf.
"What was fascinating was there had been a gradual
evolution in Arthur's game over two to three years,"
Flink notes. "Instead of going for broke on almost
every shot, he returned to basics and became more selective.
Still the notion of Arthur poking, chipping returns, and
hitting underspin forehands was startling."
Ashe did not just create the game plan, he stuck to it
superbly, winning the first two sets 6-1, 6-1. Connors,
a player renowned for his never-say-die attitude was not
prepared to give his title up easily and took the third
set, 7-5.
The fourth set found Connors with an early break-up 3-0
and at that stage it looked as though the reigning Champion
was clawing his way back into the match and would take the
match into a final set. However, as Fink recalls: "Arthur
said at that point he questioned sticking with his plan
or begin hitting with more pace. He decided to continue
doing what had given him the first two sets. While it was
worrisome to be down 3-0, it was only one service break.
I think he made a wise choice. I also think he was very
wise slicing his serve wide from the deuce court. (John)
Newcombe had done it defeating Jimmy in the Australian Open
that year. Arthur's short, wide, hooking serve left Jimmy
helpless."
Ashe won six out of the next seven games, to take the final
set 6-4 and become the first black male to win the Men's
Singles Championship at Wimbledon.
While the men's side provided the ultimate movie script
setting, the Ladies' singles saw the No. 3 seed, Billie
Jean King, play No. 4 seed Evonne Goolagong Cawley in the
final. Both players were brilliant reaching the title round,
with King dropping a single set en route to the final (to
the top seed Chris Evert, in the semi-finals), while Cawley
lost two, one in the Second Round to Helen Gourlay and another
to Virginia Wade, seeded sixth, in the quarter-finals. However,
the final was a one-sided affair with Cawley helpless against
King, who destroyed her 6-0, 6-1. It was to be the last
of Billie Jean King's six Championship victories in the
singles.
Written by Mark Winters
