Authors: Arthur Ashe
Bucharest in 1984 was a dreary city, with shops that had
nothing to offer, and with a repressive, intrusive secret police that resulted in our party, including wives, attending a briefing at the U.S. embassy in a room draped with aluminum foil, or some similar substance, to frustrate eavesdropping. The only spark of warmth and friendship emanating from Rumania came from the unforgettable personality of Ilie Nastase. Still a member of the national team, Nastase evoked bitter memories of the Davis Cup tie in Bucharest in 1972 between the U.S. and Rumania, when cheating by local officials reached an abysmal low. In the decisive match between Stan Smith and Ion Tiriac, judges called foot faults to negate Smith’s aces, Tiriac orchestrated crowd noises to disturb Smith’s game, and a linesman at one point openly massaged Tiriac’s cramping legs and urged him on. Smith, always the epitome of self-control, kept his temper in check and eventually won the match. At the end, he gravely shook Tiriac’s hand. “Ion,” Stan said, “I must tell you that I will always respect you as a player. But I will never again have any respect for you as a man.” Tiriac was left speechless.
Nastase had been, in his prime, fantastically gifted as a player, almost on a level of uncanny ability with McEnroe. He was also given to outrageous behavior on the tennis court, including crude and vicious teasing of opponents, such as accusations about their sexual preferences and abilities. He liked to call me “Negroni,” and once, in the heat of battle in a tournament in Hawaii, even called me a nigger. I myself didn’t hear the remark but was told about it. In 1975, at the Masters tournament in Sweden, I had walked off the court in a match against him after his taunting had become unbearable. Refusing to answer him in kind, I deliberately defaulted. (The supervising committee decided later that day to award me the match, 6–0, 6–0. After the tournament, which he nevertheless won because its format did not allow for elimination after one loss, Nastase sent me a bouquet of roses.) Since then, I have always counted Nastase as a friend. In 1977, he showed up at my
wedding. “You didn’t invite me,” he said, grinning and offering his hand in congratulations. “But I came anyway.”
Nastase was always a little mad. Now, thirty-seven years old and fifteen pounds above his best weight, he showed flashes of his genius of old, firing thirteen aces past McEnroe in the opening match. He stalled and argued, abused the umpire, and was duly penalized. To our cadre of supporters from the U.S. embassy who waved little American flags to encourage our effort, he genially offered the finger from time to time. He worked on McEnroe, seeking to arouse him; but John remained calm. The Rumanians did not win a set until the last match of the tie.
We beat Argentina and Australia, and then in mid-December, faced the Swedes in the Cup final in Göteborg. This encounter turned out to be one of the more dismal points of my tennis career. From our arrival, nothing seemed to go right. Inside the Scandinavium, the nation’s largest indoor facility, the Swedes had prepared a clay court to give themselves an advantage. We needed to accustom ourselves to the surface, but none of us seemed ready to make the supreme effort. Meanwhile, everyone on the Swedish team except Mats Wilander diligently arrived in Göteborg ten days before the tie and worked out hard for four hours daily. Wilander was away only because he was chasing his second Australian Open, which he won. Then, match fit, he hurried home.
In contrast, McEnroe and Connors were both badly off their stride. Unshaven and unkempt, McEnroe looked exhausted and depressed. He had recently been suspended for twenty-one days for outrageous behavior in a tournament in Stockholm. Viewers around the world had seen the film clip of McEnroe engaging in a vile, murderous tirade, smashing racquets and cups and abusing officials. Now, rusty from his enforced rest, he had to return to Sweden to play Davis Cup tennis. With the press he was first testy, then surly, and finally bitter and contentious. Connors, too, hadn’t played competitively in a while. With his wife, Patty, expecting their second child any day, he was also distracted.
He asked me if he could arrive a day late and I agreed, which was a mistake. When he got there, all his hostility to the Davis Cup and to team play seemed to return. Everything about our arrangements appeared to anger him, and nothing I said made any difference.
Relations between us crumbled after an incident one night. Practice was scheduled for seven in the evening between Connors and Arias, whom I had selected as an alternate singles player all year. Connors, on time, was already at the stadium; I was supposed to bring Arias over. Our car was late in arriving, and we reached the stadium about ten or fifteen minutes after seven. By this point, Connors, who is nearly always punctual (when he shows up for an event), had worked himself up into a sweaty rage. As I walked through a door onto the court, I saw a message he had scrawled in large letters in the soft clay, presumably for me. His message read: FUCK YOU.
I felt exactly as if he had slapped my face. I wanted to replace him on the spot and send him home, but I knew our chances of winning would have dropped precipitously. I swallowed my pride and endured the insult.
In the tie, played before enthusiastic, sellout crowds, the Swedes defeated us decisively, 4–1. Wilander, tanned, lithe, and fleet of foot after his Australian campaign, crushed Connors 6–1, 6–3, 6–3. Jimmy was sadly out of shape, and the clay court set up by the Swedes caused a few odd bounces that frustrated him as he struggled to find his form. At the end of the first set, he resorted to unspeakably vile language, cursing both the umpire and referee Alan Mills (who was also later the Wimbledon referee). Mills was outraged. Connors was fined $2,000 and came within a penalty point of being defaulted. Mills let us know that he was thinking seriously of recommending that Connors be banned from further competition.
Donald Dell, who had come in for the matches, convinced Connors to apologize to Mills. As Donald put it, Jimmy had to apologize to preserve the honor of the United States. I don’t know if Jimmy fully appreciated this concept,
but he understood it sufficiently to make what Mills called a “very genuine and personal apology” to both him and the umpire.
By this time, Henrik Sundstrom had defeated McEnroe, who also found the clay surface daunting. McEnroe’s rustiness showed, and he had also injured his wrist. The next day, in the doubles, McEnroe and Fleming fell to Jarryd and nineteen-year-old Stefan Edberg in four sets—and we had lost the Cup. We had prepared shabbily, and had paid the price accordingly. For this I bear most of the blame.
The tie now decided, Connors asked to go home to his wife. I gave him permission to do so, and Arias finally had his chance to play. I had named Arias to our team after he had become one of the top ten in the world, then stuck with him when his ranking slid into the twenties. Then I heard from agents for other players who couldn’t understand why he was on the team and they were not. I believed that I had to be loyal to Arias, and not dump him simply because he had slipped a little. Meanwhile, Arias himself made it clear that he did not enjoy being a backup player, even to Connors and McEnroe. He wanted to play singles. Now he had his chance in a best-of-three-sets “dead rubber” match.
Against Sundstrom, Arias took the first set and seemed on his way to an easy triumph. Then, inexplicably, with no sun or wind to contend with, and on his favorite surface, clay, Arias began to hyperventilate. He simply became too excited. As I watched in deepening embarrassment, he began to cramp up badly. Sundstrom won, 3–6, 8–6, 6–3.
THE WAY WE
had lost to Sweden, more than the loss itself, truly hurt me. Whatever their reasons, Connors and McEnroe had not come prepared to play at their best. I suppose I could have demoted them just before their matches, but I don’t think anyone else would have done so. Above all, I hated being associated with the vile language Connors flung about on the court, and the flagrant abuse of the officials. I was also taken aback at the awards dinner when Hunter Delatour, the president of the USTA in 1983 and
1984, apologized to the Swedes for the Americans’ conduct during the tie. I know that I would not have done so, and some of the American players were livid. I took it as another rebuke, although one not unjustified, when the incoming president of the USTA, J. Randolph Gregson, promised to make a “complete evaluation” of our Cup effort. Then Harry Merlo, chairman of the Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, the sponsor of our national team, threatened to withdraw its support if such misconduct continued. “Unless we can be assured that such constructive changes will be made,” he insisted, “we will move to withdraw our sponsorship.”
We were heading toward a crisis. Public criticism of the players became widespread; I received about fifty letters asking me to banish McEnroe and Connors, at least for a year. In a syndicated column, William E. Simon, a former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, called their behavior in Sweden “one of the most disgusting and vulgar displays of childishness ever seen in a world-class sporting event.” The column was entitled “America’s Punks.” A highly respected Washington
Post
sportswriter called for the two players to be “kicked off the U.S. Davis Cup team immediately.”
Then Merlo and Gregson came up with a plan. In January 1985, the USTA sent out letters to the top thirty or so American players asking them to apply for Davis Cup selection only if they were prepared to abide by a list of guidelines for good behavior. If they applied for a spot and were chosen, they would have to sign a Davis Cup “contract” that required them to behave like gentlemen.
To me, the idea seemed like a loyalty pledge. The U.S. Davis Cup committee had a right to expect good behavior, but umpires and referees already had the power to discipline players. Some players were scornful. “I could have written the proposed guidelines in third grade,” Fleming jeered. “They aren’t exactly revolutionary.” And one prominent tennis writer compared them “to the Pledge of Allegiance sleepy kids recite every morning in school.”
I couldn’t bring myself to take a resolutely hard line
against the players even if they needed it, and even if they behaved in ways that I detested. In January, at an event I attended to promote a new line of sports clothing, most of the questions put to me were about the players’ behavior. I tried to put the burden of disciplining them on the umpires and referees. “If I feel a player is wrong,” I told a reporter, “I’ll let the umpire nail him. Then, if it gets too embarrassing, I’ll tell the players to stop or we’ll roll down the nets. But if the umpire doesn’t nail the player, then …” Even I could see that this was hardly an adamant statement.
McEnroe hated the pledge and made it clear that he would not sign it. “I don’t see why I should have to sign it,” he said, “simply because they [the USTA] were backed into a corner by some sponsor who wasn’t even involved the first six years that I played.” Earlier, he had announced that he would skip our next match, against Japan—the first Cup tie he would miss in seven years. His aim, he said (and I believed him), was to give other players a chance to shine. He would then return to the team, if selected. But he would not sign the pledge. “What if I signed,” he asked insouciantly at one point, “then went on a rampage in the next match? Would I have to sign again?”
In the final analysis, I faced the fact that I had been chosen captain by the president of the USTA and had an obligation to enforce its decisions or else resign. And I did not want to resign in apparent defense of the right of players to misbehave. Publicly I called the guidelines enforceable, and looked to the future: “A more disciplined U.S. team should emerge.”
As for coarse language on court, I tried to point out that “all athletes curse at times—at themselves, at opponents, at officials, and sometimes at the public.” However, tennis players would have to realize that the presence of microphones on the court, as well as the traditional gentility of tennis, meant that the players would have to learn to restrain themselves, although their tirades boosted television ratings for tennis matches. “Tennis players are not going to stop cursing,” I said, “but they are going to have to learn
to do it
sotto voce
or else they will be defaulted. In the future, audible coarse language will not be tolerated from our team members.” I believed I had taken as firm a stand as I wanted.
IN MARCH
1985, in Kyoto, Japan, and in the absence of Mac and Jimmy, I named Eliot Teltscher and Aaron Krickstein to play singles, and Ken Flach and Robert Seguso to play doubles. Now I had to endure the anger of Arias and his agent.
“You kicked Jimmy in the teeth!” he screamed at me. “In the teeth!”
“I gave him a chance in a match that didn’t really matter,” I countered. “And he blew it.”
In
Tennis
magazine, Arias complained bitterly (but not very effectively, I thought) about me. “I went to Bucharest in the middle of the winter,” he said. “I’ve attended every single match as a water boy, practically. I just felt I’d paid my dues.” He would play Davis Cup tennis again, he offered, “but with Arthur as captain, it’s questionable.” (He failed to mention, apparently, that he was paid $60,000 as a team member for the year.) Teltscher, too, criticized me. My “indecisiveness” annoyed him. “He asked me if I’d be available to play,” Eliot explained to the press. “I said, ‘Are you asking me to?’ He said, ‘No, I just wanted to see if you’d be available.’ I just want him to make a decision and let me know.”
I didn’t take such criticism too much to heart. Most players want to play, even if they don’t deserve to do so ahead of other players. Rookies seldom like watching veterans enjoy the fruits of their years of labor. I thought John had earned the right to expect a favor or two, but lesser players often complained about that. I remember one heated exchange with Arias.
“How come Mac can show up a day late for the tie,” Jimmy fumed, “and I have to be here on time? How come, Arthur?”
“Go win three Wimbledons and four U.S. Opens like
John,” I snapped back, “and then we’ll discuss it.” (In 1986, Arias redeemed himself by winning the decisive fifth match against Ecuador.)