Jimmy Connors: The Hellion of Tennis

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Connors may not mope much longer. "I think I've found the right girl," he says. "When things are right—which may be soon—we'll settle down." After calling off their nationally ballyhooed engagement last fall, Connors and Evert decided not to talk to each other for four months. "We needed to find out if we really wanted to be with each other," says Jimmy. "I wasn't very happy, and she wasn't very happy. Since we got back together, we're working things out a lot better. I guess we're much more honest." Chris seems to agree. "I was going out of my mind," she remembers. "Every morning I'd read the paper to see how he was doing. It was a very unhappy time for me, but it was good for us."

These days the two spend all their time together when they are in the same city, which is about one week in four. Around his neck Jimmy wears a gold charm spelling "SUPER" that Chris gave him, while Chris wears a "J.C." charm from Jimmy. In Los Angeles, they act like any young couple in love—hugging, holding hands, dancing at parties, and skipping the conspicuous consumption they could easily afford (last year Chris earned $197,000 and Jimmy $285,000 in prize money alone). When they play tennis together—a rare occurrence—it is merely a relaxed practice session. They do team up for mixed doubles matches occasionally, though Jimmy says he hates to hit balls hard at young women.

Connors grew up in East St. Louis and Belleville, Ill., the son of a toll booth manager on what is now called the Martin Luther King bridge, which spans the Mississippi River at St. Louis. James Connors Sr., though, was never the main influence in Jimmy's life, and the two appear to have an uneasy relationship. It was Jimmy's mother, a tournament player and teaching pro, who began tossing tennis balls at Connors when he was three. "I started him as soon as he could walk pretty well," recalls Gloria, still in her perky 40s. "Jimmy took to tennis like it was part of him," she says. "He had his game together by the time he was five." By the time he was ten, Connors had won his first tournament, the Southern Illinois for players ten years old and under.

When he was 16, Jimmy enrolled at Rexford High, a private school in Beverly Hills, and started taking lessons from Pancho Segura, then pro at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. To help pay his way, Jimmy's mother temporarily moved to L.A. to teach tennis herself. "Everyone said Jimmy was too small," remembers Segura. Undaunted, Segura began passing on his knowledge about technique, tactics and strategy, and at the club he and Connors would often pore over improvised diagrams that Pancho drew on paper table napkins.

In 1970 Connors went to U.C.L.A. where he promptly won the N.C.A.A. singles title. Impatient with school and amateur tennis, he dropped out to turn pro in January 1972. "I have no regrets," he says. "I can always go back, but I might never win Wimbledon again."