Arthur Ashe

by Raymond Arsenault

  While McEnroe claimed he couldn’t care less about his censure by the British establishment, he was not himself during his opening round match against Lendl. Playing before nearly eighteen thousand fans, the largest Davis Cup crowd in American history, he lost in straight sets, though remarkably he did so without misbehaving or losing his temper. After the match, he conceded he was mentally worn out from the Wimbledon controversy. Nonetheless, he proved his mettle two days later, thrilling a rousing crowd of fellow New Yorkers with a crushing victory over Tomas Smid. Combined with Connors’s earlier win over Smid, and Smith and Lutz’s triumph in the doubles, this impressive effort eliminated the defending champions.

  Ashe was thrilled not only by the team’s victory over the Czechs but also by McEnroe’s grit and poise under pressure. It was perhaps the happiest moment he had experienced since his retirement fifteen months earlier, and it was all the better because Jeanne was there to share it with him. Connors, by contrast, was in no mood to celebrate—despite his two singles victories. By his own admission, he was never happy when he failed to capture the limelight, and all the hoopla surrounding McEnroe the hometown hero apparently spoiled the scene for him. Prior to the tie, he had promised he would be part of the Davis Cup squad for the remainder of the year. But, as Ashe later put it, “in the hour of victory . . . he packed his bags and strolled away from us.” Connors would not play against Australia in the next round; in fact, he would not play Davis Cup tennis again until 1984.11

  Connors’s abrupt departure forced Ashe to put Tanner back in the second singles slot behind McEnroe. Fortunately, the team had more than enough punch to handle a weak Australian team. Played in Portland, Oregon, in October, the semifinal tie drew large crowds, nearly 35,000 over three days of play. The result, as expected, was a 5–0 sweep for the Americans, but the most memorable aspect of the Portland competition had nothing to do with the score.

  To the horror of much of the American tennis establishment, McEnroe and his partner, Peter “Flam” Fleming, set a new standard of uncouth behavior during a doubles match against Peter McNamara and Phil Dent. “McEnroe and Fleming behaved so badly and uttered so many profanities, and so insulted their opponents, the officials, and some spectators,” Ashe observed, “that I was left embarrassed, enraged, and bitter. When I told the two of them that they had behaved disgracefully, they were unapologetic. I found myself withdrawing even more from them.” In the days leading up to the match, McEnroe had made it clear that he bitterly resented Ashe’s attempts to maintain a consistent protocol of decorum. The temperamental star, Ashe concluded, “hated any form of authority, at least in tennis. I wasn’t a linesman or an umpire or a referee, but as captain I represented authority, and he clearly felt an obligation to rebel.”12

  Now Ashe faced the difficult task of getting his team ready for the final against Argentina, which would be played in Cincinnati in mid-December. The fallout from the misbehavior in Portland was considerable, with some observers speculating that the root of the problem was the poor fit between the U.S. squad’s high-strung players and their “low-key” captain. World Tennis columnist Richard Evans concluded McEnroe “was operating at a pitch of emotional endeavor that Ashe could barely understand.” Ashe himself later acknowledged as much, but like Trabert before him, he could not bring himself to accept the coarse behavior of some of the younger players. Nor could he see himself as an on-court cheerleader willing to follow the lead of rabid win-at-any-cost players. Consequently, he seemed passive and emotionally unsupportive to McEnroe and several other players who saw his commitment to sportsmanship as a cover for his lack of intensity.13

  Whatever the truth of the matter, Ashe knew he had strong backing from the American tennis establishment. With the USTA celebrating its centennial year, there was considerable pressure on American tennis to show its best face to the world. Bringing the Davis Cup back to the United States would go a long way toward achieving this goal but only if the U.S. squad adhered to the accepted rules of sportsmanship and decorum. Ashe took this dual challenge seriously, and prior to the tie in Cincinnati he vowed publicly to default if any of his players dishonored the U.S. team by misbehaving during the upcoming matches. When asked to comment on this declaration, McEnroe chose to attack the reporters for manufacturing a controversy. “Why do you guys write about that stuff?” he growled, claiming: “All you want to do is sell newspapers!”

  This was not a good sign as the Americans prepared to take the court against a tough Argentine team led by Guillermo Vilas and José Luis Clerc. For a time in late November, Connors led Ashe to believe that he was seriously considering rejoining the U.S. squad for the Davis Cup final, but he eventually begged off. Ashe’s biggest problem, however, was finding a way to win that did not sully the nation’s honor. He later recalled he could sense “a great tension among the players in Cincinnati,” as both teams featured players with highly temperamental court personalities. Vilas and Clerc had been feuding for years, “egged on by their Latin brand of vanity,” as Ashe put it. On the American side, Fleming insisted he didn’t need any coaching from Ashe or anyone else, and McEnroe arrived in Cincinnati looking for “blood.” At the 1980 Davis Cup tie held in Buenos Aires, he had lost to both Vilas and Clerc amidst a “tumultuous, heckling crowd,” so to him the rematch in Cincinnati was a personal grudge match.14

  Ashe feared that all of this angst—combined with the lingering anger from Portland—would prove explosive, and he was right. In the opening singles match, McEnroe punished Vilas with a dominating straight-set victory. As Ashe recalled, “Vilas was so wounded by this thrashing that he refused to come to the interview room. Instead, he pouted and sulked in his tent.” Later in the day, Tanner lost to Clerc, evening the team score at 1–1 and setting the stage for a crucial doubles match pitting McEnroe and Fleming against Vilas and Clerc.

  The doubles match played on Saturday, December 12—almost two years to the day after Ashe’s bypass surgery—turned out to be one of the most exciting matches in Davis Cup history. The huge crowd at Riverfront Stadium witnessed a high quality of play from the start and more than the usual gamesmanship as the two teams tested each other’s patience and composure. After the teams split the first two sets, the third set, eventually won by the Americans, became a near donnybrook. As the fading Argentines resorted to delaying tactics, all four players began to trade insults and obscenities.

  By the beginning of the fourth set, tempers were on edge, and as McEnroe walked out to hit the opening serve, Vilas and Clerc suddenly “packed their bags as if on their way to the locker room.” The referee had canceled the traditional ten-minute break following the second set because there had been an unexpected earlier delay involving the repair of the stadium’s synthetic surface, but apparently Vilas and Clerc had not gotten word of the cancellation. Convinced the confusion was actually a deliberate provocation, McEnroe yelled out sarcastically: “Let me know when you’re ready, all right? We got all afternoon.” Taking this as an insult, the Argentines angrily walked toward the net, and within seconds all four players appeared to be close to blows, as they stood almost toe-to-toe. Instinctively, Arthur rushed out onto the court to defuse the situation.

  In all the years Arthur had been playing tennis, he had rarely raised his voice above a polite conversational tone, but this time he practically screamed: “John, get to the line and serve! Now!” McEnroe and Fleming seemed stunned by his forceful intervention, and, for the moment at least, the tension eased as the players separated and McEnroe trudged over to the baseline to serve. The Americans went on to win the first game, but as the teams changed ends before the second game Clerc and McEnroe “went at it” again, slinging verbal barbs. Fleming soon joined in, forcing Arthur to intervene once again. “John, Peter. You have to quit now. This is a disgrace,” he pleaded. “You cannot continue like this. I do not want to hear another obscenity out there. You are playing for the United States. Remember that!” For a brief instant, the captain thought there was a chance the m
essage had gotten through, but as soon as McEnroe walked onto the court a taunt from Clerc elicited an impassioned “Go fuck yourself!” loud enough to be picked up by television and radio microphones. “I was stunned,” Arthur recalled. “I stormed onto the court, and John and I exchanged some bitter words for a few seconds. This time I thought I might punch John. I have never punched anyone in my life, but I was truly on the brink of hitting him.”

  This loss of control in public represented a dark moment for Ashe. But the unruly scene in Cincinnati did not seem to bother the spectators in the stadium, many of whom seemed to relish the spirited disruption of a sport once known for its politeness. The limits of propriety in professional tennis had been expanding since the beginning of the Open era, and only the old-timers could remember when unrestrained aggression and self-indulgent behavior were not part of the game. One observer old enough to recall the traditions of an earlier era was Arthur’s friend Philippe Chatrier, who was attending the Davis Cup final as president of the ITF. Thoroughly disgusted by what he saw and “embarrassed for my hosts,” the Frenchman left the stadium in the middle of the doubles match.

  Virtually everyone else, of course, stayed to the end, ultimately witnessing a remarkable display of tennis artistry. Once the U.S. captain and his hot-blooded star cooled down enough to allow the match to continue, the magic of competitive tennis played at the highest level took over. For several hours, the momentum shifted back and forth, as every winning volley seemed to draw an equally spectacular counterpunch from the opposing side. After Argentina won the fourth set to tie the match at 2–2, the fifth set became a war of attrition. For much of the set, Vilas and Clerc appeared to be the fresher team and to hold a slight advantage. But for more than an hour McEnroe and Fleming kept it close. In the fourteenth game, with Argentina leading 7–6, Vilas served for the match. With the Americans on the verge of defeat, the crowd exhorted them to hold on, and they responded with a flurry of well-placed volleys that ultimately broke Vilas’s serve. An hour later, in the twentieth game, they did the same to Clerc (who had held serve in the 12 previous service games), winning the set 11–9 and bringing the marathon match to a close.15

  In his post-match comments, Arthur tried to calm the waters with a matter-of-fact description of what had just happened. “I’m happy they won and I kept them out of trouble,” he declared with a hint of a smile. “That’s what I am supposed to do.” Privately, however, he was still seething. “My anger wouldn’t abate,” he recalled years later. “It was so powerful it astonished me.” After a fitful night, he felt he had to do something drastic to convince McEnroe and Fleming that he wouldn’t tolerate a repeat of their disgraceful behavior. Placing two early morning calls to USTA president Richmond and Gordon Jorgensen, the chairman of the U.S. Davis Cup committee, he stated his concerns. “I’ve had it,” he told Richmond. “This cannot continue. What John and Peter did out there was absolutely inexcusable. In thirty years of competitive tennis, I have never seen anything like it. Even close to it. It makes us look bad, all of us, including the United States as a nation. I want to forfeit the match if McEnroe acts anything like that again. I need your support.” Knowing that a forfeit might well mean the loss of the Davis Cup, both men nonetheless gave him their backing.

  Several hours later, just prior to the final singles matches, Arthur delivered the news to McEnroe in a private meeting. Speaking in a stern voice, he warned him that a repeat of the previous day’s behavior would lead to default. Explaining that the “national honor was at stake,” he looked in vain for a sign that McEnroe understood the seriousness of the situation. After sitting in stony silence as his coach presented the equivalent of an ultimatum, a sullen McEnroe eventually grumbled, “Is that all?” When Arthur said “Yes,” McEnroe left the room without saying another word.

  Later in the day, when McEnroe took the court to play Clerc, Ashe had no confidence that any of his words had sunk in. But as the match progressed he realized his young star was making a concerted effort to control his emotions. The hard-fought contest included plenty of difficult moments, any one of which might have pushed McEnroe over the edge on a normal day. But on this day, to Ashe’s relief, he kept his composure. “On Sunday,” Sports Illustrated writer Barry McDermott observed, “everyone was talking about McEnroe’s racket, not his mouth.” Showing flashes of utter brilliance, he played what Ashe would later call “an extraordinarily, gutsy, magnificent match,” winning 6–3 in the fifth set.

  Recalling the hyper emotionalism of the match in his 2002 memoir, You Cannot Be Serious, McEnroe wrote: “When Clerc hit that last volley in the fourth game long, I jumped a foot in the air and pumped my fist; the crowd jumped to its feet, yelling ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’ That gave me goosebumps. I couldn’t squander the rare opportunity of having an entire arena full of people all on my side, and I knew I wouldn’t let my country down.” The winning point, he remembered, triggered a rare outburst of joy: “I leaped into the air, let out a victory cry, then jumped the net to shake Clerc’s hand. I threw myself into Arthur’s arms, and then Bill Norris’s. [Norris was U.S. Davis Cup trainer.] I turned to the crowd and stuck both my index fingers into the air. Then I hugged every guy on the team. I was a hero: a very strange sensation for me, let me tell you. . . . I was on top of the mountain.”16

  Despite all the recent turmoil, the Davis Cup was back in American hands. During the victory celebration, a beaming McEnroe held the cup aloft for the crowd to see, and later in the press room he exclaimed; “This is by far the best Davis Cup victory I’ve ever had.” In the post-match press conference, both he and Ashe tried to keep the focus on the quality of the tennis—and on the triumph itself. But several reporters broadened the focus with questions about Ashe’s troubled relationship with McEnroe—and about his future as a Davis Cup captain.

  Even Neil Amdur, the New York Times columnist who had grown close to Ashe during the past eighteen months, speculated about the difficulties ahead. “Whether McEnroe and Ashe can continue their silent partnership remains to be seen,” he counseled his readers. McEnroe, while agreeing that differences in attitude and perspective could sometimes make courtside relationships “uncomfortable,” put a positive spin on the situation. “When you win the cup,” he declared, “a lot is forgotten.” Arthur seemed to agree. When Amdur asked him if he had thought about resigning, the answer was an emphatic no. “I don’t want to leave. I love it,” he insisted.17

  Having won the Davis Cup on the first try, Arthur was reasonably sure his position as captain was secure. Yet, even in victory, some observers speculated he might not be the best man for the job. Perhaps, it was suggested in some quarters, the Virginia gentleman’s leadership style was too passive to keep the “Superbrat” and his ill-mannered partner in line. In the weeks following the Davis Cup triumph, he received advice from all sides: from tennis columnists, most of whom seemed to appreciate the difficulty of his situation; and from letter-writing fans, some of whom urged him to throw McEnroe and Fleming off the team. “I have always admired your tennis and your attitude toward the game,” one man wrote from California. “Tennis is the most exciting and enjoyable sport in the world, and I love it passionately. Please do not let it be demeaned by a great player of low moral stature.” Another fan, writing from Indiana, pointed out that McEnroe was “the absolute image of the ‘Ugly American.’ ”

  For the most part, both the press and the public seemed hesitant to place the blame squarely on Arthur’s shoulders. But there were a few exceptions. “With no visible joy,” Seattle Times editor George Meyers wrote with a measure of sarcasm, “Arthur has answered one of the burning questions of the day: When victory, and profits, are paramount, do superlative skills absolve outrageous, unforgivable conduct? Obviously, yes.” In a similar vein, a tennis-playing doctor from Philadelphia scolded Arthur for tolerating “deplorable tactics on the court.” “If you can’t control your players,” he wrote, “it is your responsibility to select other players who are gentlemen and who will refle
ct the best interest of the team and of the United States in international competition.”18

  Arthur took these charges of complicity very seriously. In fact, Dell, whose judgment he trusted as much as anyone’s, had been expressing similar sentiments for months. In the aftermath of the Portland melee, Dell advised him “to think long and hard before ever again naming McEnroe and Fleming to represent America,” reminding him: “You have spent your entire life trying to convey by example just the opposite of their behavior. You have always said, ‘Winning is not the only thing.’ In my opinion, were either McEnroe or Fleming, or both, left off the next Davis Cup match by you, setting such an example by you would do more in one gesture for American tennis than a lifetime of . . . Code of Conduct fines.” “At least,” he added, “America could be proud of its athletic representatives.”

  When Arthur ignored Dell’s advice, he entered uncharted territory. For the first time in his career, he found himself being taken to task for a major mistake in moral judgment. As the most celebrated sportsman in tennis, he was unaccustomed to public censure that questioned his integrity. While he was no stranger to controversy, the Davis Cup debacle was different. Any suggestion he had compromised his ethical principles for the sake of winning the Davis Cup cut him to the core.