TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : Connors Talks a Good Game From Booth

Jimmy Connors was dueling with Miloslav Mecir in the broiling sun and Mecir was winning. Connors fidgeted with his shirt and, as he wiped his face on his wristband, someone shouted from the stands:

“Come on, Jimbo!”

Connors stood motionless, then turned in the direction of the voice. “OK, where are we going?” he asked.

That was the last match Connors played in Southern California, in the semifinals of the 1989 Newsweek Champions Cup at Indian Wells, which if everything goes right, might be where the 38-year-old left-hander returns as a wild-card entry next March in what will be his 20th year on the professional tour.

Connors lost the only three matches he played in 1990, which was basically a total washout for the five-time U.S. Open champion. Tendons in his left wrist, injured in February, would not allow Connors to hit a ball without pain. And although he tried to avoid surgery, Connors needed a wrist operation last month, which he hopes will permit him to still be playing by the time he is 39 next September.

Connors, of course, expects to succeed. After a year on the sidelines and working for NBC, he has been busy sizing up the opposition.

“I certainly learned a lot about the players,” Connors said. “I saw guys who had a lot of guts and I saw some who didn’t.

“I don’t think a lot of guys have my attitude,” he said. “I don’t know whether that’s because I have a lot of confidence in my game or because I have none in theirs. But I do realize that when they say, ‘experience counts,’ that’s bull. If you don’t get to the ball, experience doesn’t count. I still think I can get to the ball.”

He can also get to the bank. In February, Connors will play a four-city exhibition series, called, “The Fire Still Burns,” to prepare for the ATP Tour. One of the stops is tentatively scheduled for the Forum. After Wimbledon, Connors will take time out to play TeamTennis. Some estimates of his two-year TeamTennis contract run as high as $2 million.

Controversy Cup: It’s still more than three weeks away, but the Davis Cup final between the U.S. and Australia at St. Petersburg, Fla., has already reached Grand Slam proportions, at least as far as ill will and controversy are concerned. Consider:

--Tennis Australia protested a four-day delay by the U.S. Tennis Assn. in announcing the playing surface, even though the ruling International Tennis Federation had already approved the delay. That the USTA would choose clay was not much of a secret anyway.

--The Australians protested the clay for the court that was to be imported from Germany.

--Tennis Australia protested to the ITF the starting times of the matches: 5 p.m., EST, on Nov. 30 for two singles matches; 12:30 p.m., EST, the next day for the doubles match. The USTA scheduled the matches at those times because of television, which should not exactly surprise anyone.

As expected, the ITF rejected the appeal of Tennis Australia, which wanted the first day’s matches played earlier. Agence France-Presse quoted Geoff Pollard, president of Tennis Australia, as saying that Philippe Chatrier, president of the International Tennis Federation, “must be dirty (angry) we beat France in the first round.”

Australian Captain Neale Fraser said the times are unfair because he intends to use Pat Cash in both the singles and doubles. If so, Cash could be playing until midnight the first day and returning to the court before noon the second day.

All told, Australia is batting .333 in the protest department, winning only the battle to stop the importation of the red clay from Germany. Instead, the USTA is using red clay crushed last week in Tampa, Fla.

Add Cup: “After all this, wouldn’t it be something if Australia won?” Connors asked. “I’ve got a funny feeling.”

Name game: The six-year-old San Diego women’s professional tournament, which used to be the Virginia Slims of San Diego and later was renamed for the Great American Bank, has a new name and a new venue for 1991--the Mazda tennis tournament.

The $225,000 event, with a 28-player draw, will be held July 29-Aug. 4 at La Costa, with the winner receiving a new car. Steffi Graf has won the past two years.

His new line?: Appearing on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” last week, Andre Agassi said he is considering a second career away from the tennis court--acting. “Acting is something I’ve always toyed around with,” he said. “Part of what I do is more than just sport, it’s entertainment. . . . It’s fun to entertain.”

He won’t Budge: Don Budge, 75, who in 1938 became the first man to win a Grand Slam, is recovering from eye surgery at his home in Dingman’s Ferry, Pa. Budge had a cataract removed from his right eye. He knew he had to do something to correct his vision when he was in London this summer to watch Wimbledon and played a little tennis with friends. Budge had trouble getting his racket on the ball.

“I thought, ‘God, the people I am playing with are going to wonder how I ever won Wimbledon,’ ” Budge said.

Within a month, he expects vision in his right eye to return to 20-20. “I’ve got to be patient,” Budge said. “And, gosh, I feel great. At my age, I should have one foot in the grave, but I feel so good, I’m staying.”

Shaping up: U.S. Open champion Pete Sampras, who credited his improved quickness and agility as ingredients in his rapid success, is a student of the training techniques of Henry Hines of Westwood.

A former long jumper at USC, Hines is not a conditioning coach, but a quickness and agility specialist who began working on and off with Sampras 11 months ago. “His improvement was pretty dramatic, actually,” said Hines, who also has worked with Michael Chang, Amy Frazier and Mary Joe Fernandez.

“He just had a lack of knowledge of movement before, but once he learned, he felt he could get to every ball. He really believed his game was complete.”

Tennis Notes

The Southern California Tennis Assn.’s junior development program is sponsoring college and university scholarship meetings at 2 p.m. next Sunday at the Los Angeles Tennis Center and at 7 p.m. on Dec. 4 in the Salomon Lecture Hall on the University of San Diego campus. Tennis scholarships for men and women in the fall of 1991 will be discussed. The meetings are free and open to scholarship athletes, parents and coaches. Information: Mark Winters of the SCTA at (213) 208-3838.

Martina Navratilova said she has no plans to play in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles next August but intends to play in the inaugural Virginia Slims of Palm Springs in March. . . . Hyatt Grand Champions in Indian Wells made Tennis magazine’s list of the top 50 tennis resorts in the United States for the first time. Other California places on the list are John Gardner’s Rancho Valencia in Rancho Santa Fe, Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, La Quinta, and Marriott’s Desert Springs and Shadow Mountain in Palm Desert.

How costly was John McEnroe’s loss in his first match in the Paris Indoor tournament last week? McEnroe, who double-faulted on match point against Jakob Hlasek, said: “I guess you can say I choked.” McEnroe refused to shake either Hlasek’s hand or the chair umpire’s hand afterward. During the match, McEnroe was one step away from defaulting after receiving two prior code violations, for slamming the ball and for throwing his racket. McEnroe’s defeat ended his chances of qualifying for the ATP Tour World Finals in Frankfurt, Germany, because he needed a good showing in Paris to climb into the top eight. Instead, McEnroe fell two places to No. 13. McEnroe was probably a longshot for Frankfurt anyway: He needed to defeat Hlasek, Goran Ivanisevic, Stefan Edberg, Sergi Bruguera and Boris Becker to qualify. McEnroe seemed to indicate that his season has ended, which would mean he will not play in the $6-million Grand Slam Cup. “I was waiting for the last minute to know how I felt,” McEnroe told the Associated Press. “Now I feel like I need a break. I don’t feel at the top of my game.”

The Net Gals from the San Fernando Valley reached the finals of the 4.0 division in the USTA/Volvo National Tennis Championships last week in Palm Springs. The Net Gals, who represented Southern California in the competition, were singles players June Sugasuwara, Heidi Broecking, Tina Clarfield, Lily Reeves, and doubles players Doreen Goldberg, Edda Speisser, Beverly Lever, Laura Pearl, Edith Stefel, Val Hait and Myrna Craig.