TENNIS
His behavior may have been ridiculous, but his tennis was sublime. John McEnroe stopped Bjorn Borg from winning his sixth straight Wimbledon championship with a stunning 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4 victory in the final on the Fourth of July. McEnroe's serves, like the one at the left, and his manners were never better on that afternoon. However, in the days leading up to the final, he caused a McEnrow by offending opponents, officials, the ears of Lady Di and the sensibilities of the All England Club, which did not extend to him the traditional winner's invitation to join. Ten weeks later, back home in his native Queens, N.Y., McEnroe won the U.S. Open, disposing of Borg in the final again, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3. In December, McEnroe won both his singles matches and teamed with Peter Fleming to win the doubles as the U.S. beat Argentina to regain the Davis Cup. The biggest women's prizes went to Chris Evert Lloyd, who defeated Hana Mandlikova at Wimbledon, and Tracy Austin, who beat Martina Navratilova for the U.S. Open.
Borg (near right, top) may have missed out on Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, but he did add yet another French Open title to his collection—he now has six, four of them in a row. The tennis year was chock-full of such feats. Evert Lloyd (right center, top) reached the Wimbledon semifinals for the 10th straight time and the U.S. Open semis for the 11th straight year. Ivan Lendl (far right, top) won his seventh straight Grand Prix event; his streak covered six countries and many types of surfaces, including the carpet at Madison Square Garden, where he beat Vitas Gerulaitis in the Masters final. Jose-Luis Clerc (near right, bottom) strung together four Grand Prix victories in as many weeks, although all of his were on clay courts. Kathy Rinaldi (far right, bottom) emerged as the latest in the Evert Lloyd-Austin-Andrea Jaeger line when she became, at 14, the youngest woman ever to win a match at Wimbledon.
Both Navratilova (near right, top) and Jimmy Connors (below) distinguished themselves in defeat. Navratilova was brought to tears by the Flushing Meadow crowd, which cheered and cheered her after she was introduced as Austin's runner-up in the U.S. Open. Navratilova did win the Australian Open and the Avon Championships. Connors had Borg on the ropes in their Wimbledon semifinal, only to lose 6-4 in the fifth set. "Me and Jimmy had an unbelievable match," said Borg afterward. Austin (far right) showed her true grit by returning from a lower-back ailment to win both the U.S. Open and, in the women's finale, the Toyota Championships. Ecuador's Andres Gomez (top, center) likes to put a lot of bite on the ball.
TEN PHOTOS