Word: borg
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...usual time: the last week in August and the first week of September. The usual people were in attendance: Grand Slam Candidate Bjorn Borg with a fortune in endorsement insignia to grace his tennis togs; new women's No. 1 Martina Navratilova with a fortune in gold jewelry to adorn her now-winning form; Chris Evert with a list of crack hairdressers for prematch sprucing up; Vitas Gerulaitis with a list of ear-splitting discos for post-match winding down; Evonne Goolagong stayed home with her baby; Jimmy Connors brought his mother along. Only the place was unusual...
...from high-paying tournaments to still higher paying exhibitions to the stratospheric payoffs of staged-for-TV challenge matches. Once Jack Kramer, Lew Hoad, Pancho Gonzales and Ken Rosewall dreamed of an organized tour circuit that would provide steady income to pro regulars. The current Big Three-Borg, Connors and Argentina's Guillermo Vilas -can now ply their trade on two multimillion-dollar tours, Lamar Hunt's World Championship Tennis and the Grand Prix circuit. However, this year none of them has deigned to play in enough W.C.T. and G.P. events to qualify for the $2 million bonus...
...best. And the parade of youngsters eager to enter the pro ranks of this newly lucrative sport has become a stampede. John McEnroe, at 18 the youngest semifinalist in Wimbledon history, tossed over a scholarship to turn pro. His earnings, $68,432 to date this year, are far from Borg's $550,141, but considerable for a kid who, not so long ago, survived on an allowance. At 15, Tracy Austin remains an amateur, but one sign of coming times is the fact that she is seeded No. 5 for the U.S. Open...
...once again, as in their last two matches, at Boca Raton, Fla., and Tokyo earlier this year, the younger Borg (now 22, vs. 25 for Connors) was clearly superior. His metronomic groundstrokes raked the corners of the court, upsetting Connors' rhythm and preventing him from battling back with the laser passing shots and pinpoint volleys that are his best strokes. But it was Borg's serve that made this the quickest (107 min.) and most definitive Wimbledon men's final since 1974, when Connors pasted Ken Rosewall in a straight...
...Borg scored five aces and 19 outright winners on his whistling serve; Connors was able to break service but once in twelve games. With Connors rocked back on his heels by the Swede's boomers, Borg, who normally takes root at the baseline and whittles away with topspin ground-strokes, moved to the net to volley Jimmy's returns. Until recently, the sight of Borg at the net was as rare as, say, a display of good manners by Ilie Nastase. But Borg charged to the front court frequently and effectively in his semifinal with The Netherlands...