Jimmy Connors isn’t sure when the first outburst will come – or from which side of the net.
But odds are that one or more voices will be raised at some point.
“I guess the further you get away from being what you used to be, the calmer things should get — but there’s no guarantee about that,” Connors said. “I guess there will always be a quiver when we’re around tennis, which is normal. …
“There will always be a little feeling of anxiousness when you run into somebody that you had a great rivalry with.”
On Wednesday evening at Bridgestone Arena, the 61-year-old Connors and old nemesis John McEnroe, 55, will be on opposite sides of a tennis court for the first time in 12 years, reprising a rivalry that is one of the most contentious in all of sports.
The PowerShares Series event, which is part of a 12-city tour that heads to Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, features four seasoned stars in one-set matches. In addition to the Connors-McEnroe match, Ivan Lendl, 54, and Pat Cash, 48, also play. The winners of those matches then face off in a one-set final.
The schedule mimics Super Saturday at the U.S. Open in 1984, perhaps one of the greatest days in tennis history. McEnroe defeated Connors and Lendl beat Cash, both in five sets, in the men’s semifinals. Those matches were sandwiched around Martina Navratilova’s victory over Chris Evert in the women’s final.