What a great moment. Jimmy and his mom. You can easily see where he got his power game from. Even back then he had that trademark two-handed backhand. Jimmy never conceded a point. The ultimate competitor. Thanks for posting.
“She had an unwavering passion for tennis. All my life, she taught me - made me a world champion - she always got me to do things without my even realizing. She instilled passion, excitement and enthusiasm into me that was contagious to everyone around me. And yet separately, she was my mother and my friend.” - Jimmy Connors
Wow. Everything from his follow through to the way the racket goes back and his footwork, every little mannerism that his body does while moving on the court is exactly the way he looked as an adult
While you can surely see the genesis of his adult game, I thought I spotted some differences, like the way the top hand came off on the backhand (almost like Borg) and his grip being almost continental on the forehand. Of course, at a young age, he needed an open racket face to get depth. Hope this isn't inappropriate, but Gloria was cute back in the day.
Jimmy Connors your a terrific tennis player. Loved to way you played the game . Congratulations on HOF ! One Irishman to another .. Kindest Regards ; Gary O'Connell 🙋♂️👏🏆🏖👍
You can see all the great footwork in this early clip. It says something about modern coaching versus so many champions who have a brother, sister, mother, father coaching them who aren’t greats of the game but nevertheless they achieve fantastic success. I bet the young Jimmy Connors spent thousands of hours playing to perfect that game. I recently spoke to a former British number 12 and asked how he became so good at the sport. The answer - “i played 10 sets a day in the summer months against my older brother and we just used to copy all the great players we saw on TV.” I asked him if he had any formal paid coaching? Answer “no.” Just thousands of hours of efforts and copying the greats.
@@philjohnson9320 Actually, she did (of course, not literally "jackass"). Mrs Connors was mentally gruff, tough, and championship minded. She made sure her son had those qualities also to become a winner.
Sampras won only 64 and yet he is the one belonging to the very exclusive double digits slam club, with 32 titles (which is half of them!) out of 64 being elite ones - grand slams, YEC, Grand Slam Cup and ATP 1000 Masters…And then you have Connors with all those dozens of garbage ATP 250/500 titles…
Their strokes are so similar! Forehand uses full extension and power is generated from body turn instead of swinging hard. Same can be said for backhands even though Jimmy had the two hander, he really just used it at impact and let go which I guess is what kids do when they learn really young. Serves are similar as well, low toss, compact motion and snap! at impact. There's recent video of Jimmy hitting around and he still generates so much effortless (looking) power.
Its actually pretty weird. At the time , and till the middle 70s , coaches would teach the forehand with not much shoudler and hip rotation , with a right handers left shoudler facing the target after contact on the follow through , but here is gloria rotating 180degrees so her right shoudler facing the target on the follow through. And that was what gave Jimmy his power as his compact strokes didnt have any great raquet head speed like a borg , but his shoulder and hip rotation were the best of his era
Wow, where did you get that ? It's fantastic. Jimmy's strokes, although still embryonic, and his footwork, are remarkably similar to what they'd become later. And seeing Mrs Connors playing, one definitely knows where his unique style came from.
@@uncletony6210 I agree. But, I still believe stopping it at the T2000 level or even the old Kneissel Lendl used (which was then the Adidas frame) would have been much better for the sport. Look at McEnroe, Borg, Lendl, Laver, Newcombe, Roche, Gerulaitis, Gonzales. That was tennis imho
What is interesting if you Read his autobiography is that there is not much space behind thé baseline hence thé fact hé would Get used to hit thé ball early
I really enjoyed reading Jimmy's autobiography and the most poignant moment in the book is when he describes the day he finally beat Gloria on their home court and he was really upset and apologetic. He was almost crying saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" but Gloria was beaming ear to ear with a big smile and said "It's the day I've always been waiting for" because she knew all her coaching of her son was finally coming to fruition.
This is so awesome to see young Jumbo playing! How old was he here about 10? You can see his greatness already and never knew Gloria was that great! Beautiful strokes and footwork. Would love to see young Chrissie in action in Ft.Lauderdale! Any films of her?
Interesting that Gloria had a smoother service motion and a one-handed backhand ;- ) However there is certainly a similarity on the forehand side. Excellent that they could dig out this video.
Interesting. Not much changed with his strokes as he became an adult. It's almost like a finger print. One could pick him out of a thousand young kids in old grainy 8mm films from the 60's.
she's hitting that classic, pre-1970's one hand backhand, that's definitely not topspin, but also isn't really slice the way we know it today. and Jimmy's doing the same thing but with two hands. i wonder how different his career would have been if he had learned topspin, at least on the forehand side.
Jimmy’s forehand only seemed like a weakness when compared to his all time great backhand. His forehand was fine except for dead, low, short balls he sometimes struggled with.
His book is called Outsider. That is apt. I grew up in a rough blue collar White neighborhood were Friday and Saturday nite were for partying drinking and fighting. Black folks wanted to bypass us back then and move into a nicer neighborhood. Most of our pops were WW2 vets who didn't take shit off nobody. I know the Conners mentality just fine.
I noticed the cars driving past in the background looked very old and the video quality looks very poor leading me to think that this was from a long time ago maybe the 1970s. The rackets looked thicker and heavier too.
What year ? I'm guessing 1963-64 ? He would have been 11 or 12 then which seems about right. He had the same basic form. To think that kid had 5 US Opens in his future and 2 Wimbledons !
Well, Now I know where is the inception of Jimmy Connors Strokes, the lightness in the footwork of Mrs Gloria Connors but despite Connors and MacKenroe has these pushing forward forehand style of playing provided them to be succesful tennis professional tennis players the powerful stroke developed in the late 70's and early 80's nothing to do with Zverev, Sinner, Alcaraz straight powerful strokes and in the middle, Lendl, Bjorg, Marín Cilic, Berdych, Davidenko, Becker, Sampras, Phillipousis, Ivanisevic, or the greatest of all times Nadal, Djokovic and Federer. I would dare to say that Zwintek, Badosa, Muguruza, direct powerful strokes female player would beat Connors, MacKenroe and all the 70's male players. Sorry
Absolutely ridiculous. Female pro players, while very good at what they do, are many levels below male pro players. They lack the quickness, stamina, and speed of the men. This is why WTA points average less than four strokes. They hit is so hard because the opponent cannot cover the corners, more than two shots consecutively. Easy to hit winners against women, even WTA. Decent DII men are equivalent in ability to mainstream WTA players, and decent DI players can beat any of them. WTA players are primarily UTR level about 12-12.5 while ATP players are 15-16. Three to four UTR levels equates to 6-0, 6-0 every time, unless the higher player simply gets bored.
@@FranklinAltunaCellistLawyer You said current WTA players would beat Connors and McEnroe in their prime, which is so preposterous I am not going to reply to you further because you clearly do not know enough about high level tennis to see why your statement is ludicrous.
@@davidedwards4720 Any of the 10 WTA Highest players like Garbiñe, Sabalenka, would beat Connors MacKenroe and Lendl generation mainly because is a more powerful atletismo and tennis Technique I really don't care anything of You have written because You are *nobody* in this business
![คุณอาเรียโต๊ะข้างๆ พูดรัสเซียหวานใส่ซะหัวใจจะวาย ตอนที่ 2 [ซับไทย] 【Ani-One Thailand】](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kbbfYakMY8k/mqdefault.jpg)
That's beautiful: Connors said at his Hall of Fame Induction that his Mom played three roles in his life----coach, mother, and friend.
What a great moment. Jimmy and his mom. You can easily see where he got his power game from. Even back then he had that trademark two-handed backhand. Jimmy never conceded a point. The ultimate competitor. Thanks for posting.
This is incredible. I never knew this existed until now. Great to see Gloria and Jimmy at this young age.
who knew East St Louis was a hot bed for tennis at one time
Beautiful playing. It's simply beautiful to watch.
He has the exact same footwork and swing. That's pretty awesome to see
“She had an unwavering passion for tennis. All my life, she taught me - made me a world champion - she always got me to do things without my even realizing. She instilled passion, excitement and enthusiasm into me that was contagious to everyone around me. And yet separately, she was my mother and my friend.” - Jimmy Connors
Wow. Everything from his follow through to the way the racket goes back and his footwork, every little mannerism that his body does while moving on the court is exactly the way he looked as an adult
While you can surely see the genesis of his adult game, I thought I spotted some differences, like the way the top hand came off on the backhand (almost like Borg) and his grip being almost continental on the forehand. Of course, at a young age, he needed an open racket face to get depth. Hope this isn't inappropriate, but Gloria was cute back in the day.
One of the coolest features I've seen yet on TH-cam. Thanks for sharing!
Amazing early footage of Jimmy Connors. This is a treasure.
Jimmy Connors, best player in every time !!!
WOW 😲 this is amazing! never even heard that there was film around somewhere of this! COOL
There is hardly any space between the baseline and fence. I wonder if that led to him taking the ball on the rise?
Playing on the wood floors of the old st.louis armoury did.
Jimmy Connors your a terrific tennis player. Loved to way you played the game .
Congratulations on HOF !
One Irishman to another ..
Kindest Regards ;
Gary O'Connell
🙋♂️👏🏆🏖👍
You can see all the great footwork in this early clip. It says something about modern coaching versus so many champions who have a brother, sister, mother, father coaching them who aren’t greats of the game but nevertheless they achieve fantastic success. I bet the young Jimmy Connors spent thousands of hours playing to perfect that game. I recently spoke to a former British number 12 and asked how he became so good at the sport. The answer - “i played 10 sets a day in the summer months against my older brother and we just used to copy all the great players we saw on TV.” I asked him if he had any formal paid coaching? Answer “no.” Just thousands of hours of efforts and copying the greats.
Just like Chrissy Evert, with her father, Jim Evert
I think it was natural for him. His mother had no idea what she was doing. He came about his style totally on his own. Something to be said for that.
Gloria Connors was an accomplished player. The comments about her not knowing what she was doing are ludicrous. Her mother also helped coach Jimmy.
Did she also teach him to be such a complete jackass on court?
@@philjohnson9320
Actually, she did (of course, not literally "jackass"). Mrs Connors was mentally gruff, tough, and championship minded. She made sure her son had those qualities also to become a winner.
This is priceless, thank you!
this child won 109 official singles titles, more than any other player since Open era started in 1968
And yet only 8 of those are grand slams! Quality over quantity…
Sampras won only 64 and yet he is the one belonging to the very exclusive double digits slam club, with 32 titles (which is half of them!) out of 64 being elite ones - grand slams, YEC, Grand Slam Cup and ATP 1000 Masters…And then you have Connors with all those dozens of garbage ATP 250/500 titles…
It’s like having a box full of empty wrappers from candy bars and boasting about having many of them! Lol
Beautiful!
Connors totally changed the game by mid 70s and definitely for the better…..loved his matches against Borg ad McEnroe
1:55 Exactly equal to Jimmy's forehand. She did well.
Their strokes are so similar! Forehand uses full extension and power is generated from body turn instead of swinging hard. Same can be said for backhands even though Jimmy had the two hander, he really just used it at impact and let go which I guess is what kids do when they learn really young. Serves are similar as well, low toss, compact motion and snap! at impact. There's recent video of Jimmy hitting around and he still generates so much effortless (looking) power.
Its actually pretty weird. At the time , and till the middle 70s , coaches would teach the forehand with not much shoudler and hip rotation , with a right handers left shoudler facing the target after contact on the follow through , but here is gloria rotating 180degrees so her right shoudler facing the target on the follow through. And that was what gave Jimmy his power as his compact strokes didnt have any great raquet head speed like a borg , but his shoulder and hip rotation were the best of his era
very inspiring. awesome mom.
Wow! Carbon copies of strokes and foot work. She must have been one of the best teachers ever.
Le jeu de jambes est déjà présent ! Incroyable !
legend in the making
Cool..the making of a champion..
He had the style and form down really early.
Wow, where did you get that ? It's fantastic. Jimmy's strokes, although still embryonic, and his footwork, are remarkably similar to what they'd become later. And seeing Mrs Connors playing, one definitely knows where his unique style came from.
these are home movies - I converted them from film to video for Gloria
They both have same FH. And that unmistakable jimmy Conners crouch when hitting it. Very amazing!
Awesome footage
technique and great teacher longevity, Jimmy you lucky boy, and 2 mum
Don't know how you got that but that's some awesome footage! Also reminds me how much funner the game was with wood rackets.
The game was much better with wooden racquets. The limit should have stopped at frames like the T2000 or the frame Roscoe Tanner used
@@LordStanley94 or any material so long as they kept it at 65 square inches.
@@uncletony6210 I agree. But, I still believe stopping it at the T2000 level or even the old Kneissel Lendl used (which was then the Adidas frame) would have been much better for the sport. Look at McEnroe, Borg, Lendl, Laver, Newcombe, Roche, Gerulaitis, Gonzales. That was tennis imho
@@LordStanley94 And Michael Chang :)
Know he grew up in Belleville..........I was there in 1998
Unbelievable find. Look at 0:45 taking the ball early!!
What is interesting if you Read his autobiography is that there is not much space behind thé baseline hence thé fact hé would Get used to hit thé ball early
he also played on indoor wood courts during the winter - unbelievably fast courts - forced him to shorten up his strokes
Where did you get that !!!! Fantastic
I really enjoyed reading Jimmy's autobiography and the most poignant moment in the book is when he describes the day he finally beat Gloria on their home court and he was really upset and apologetic. He was almost crying saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" but Gloria was beaming ear to ear with a big smile and said "It's the day I've always been waiting for" because she knew all her coaching of her son was finally coming to fruition.
This is so awesome to see young Jumbo playing! How old was he here about 10? You can see his greatness already and never knew Gloria was that great! Beautiful strokes and footwork. Would love to see young Chrissie in action in Ft.Lauderdale! Any films of her?
Jimbo
Interesting that Gloria had a smoother service motion and a one-handed backhand ;- ) However there is certainly a similarity on the forehand side.
Excellent that they could dig out this video.
Interesting. Not much changed with his strokes as he became an adult. It's almost like a finger print. One could pick him out of a thousand young kids in old grainy 8mm films from the 60's.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
she's hitting that classic, pre-1970's one hand backhand, that's definitely not topspin, but also isn't really slice the way we know it today. and Jimmy's doing the same thing but with two hands. i wonder how different his career would have been if he had learned topspin, at least on the forehand side.
Yeah ..that forehand, always dogged him, especially, when he lost in the shocker final of the US open to Vilas.
his game held up for 4 decades and won more tournaments than any player in history - 109
Jimmy’s forehand only seemed like a weakness when compared to his all time great backhand. His forehand was fine except for dead, low, short balls he sometimes struggled with.
👍🎾🤗🤗
The court was gone and the house was empty a few decades ago. There's no way I would drive down there today.
Needn't say anything more. Lol gotcha man!😂✔💯
His service motion was better then.
Gee, that double releasing hand backhand is a new style, it lacks the power but accomplishes the leverage and support.
His facial features look very similar to his mum.
It be interesting to know what jimmy would have to say about his town now
Hear it's pretty hood down there now. I come from a rough neighborhood myself so I can relate to Jimmy. We both still got a chip on our shoulder.
His book is called Outsider. That is apt. I grew up in a rough blue collar White neighborhood were Friday and Saturday nite were for partying drinking and fighting. Black folks wanted to bypass us back then and move into a nicer neighborhood. Most of our pops were WW2 vets who didn't take shit off nobody. I know the Conners mentality just fine.
He didn't get his backhand from his mom. She was pretty good I might add.
Back foot most of the time on deeper balls...bad player, but effective coach for her son I guess...
she was a very strong player - professional level in her day - even at 70 she was a great hitting partner
Jimmy couldn’t beat his mom until he was like 16 years old. She was a terrific player.
Gloria was certainly a Tiger Mom
Belleville Illinois is NOT East St Louis.
No it isn't. I've been there
I noticed the cars driving past in the background looked very old and the video quality looks very poor leading me to think that this was from a long time ago maybe the 1970s. The rackets looked thicker and heavier too.
Since Connors won grand slams in 1974 you are off by at least a decade.
@@davidedwards4720 I'm guessing @ 1961 or 2.
Ah... when wooden rackets were the thing, the only thing.
What year ? I'm guessing 1963-64 ? He would have been 11 or 12 then which seems about right. He had the same basic form. To think that kid had 5 US Opens in his future and 2 Wimbledons !
Don't forget 1 AO and the only one to conquer the US open in 3 different surfaces.
Every ball is so low and flat...it looks like a different game....top spin revolutionized the game.....it looks more like squash then tennis...
And now it a murder ground...
The making of of a guy despite his accomplishment was a petulant twerp on the court
Interesting that back then, nobody hit with a two handed backhand. Ho did this kid think he was?
Well, Now I know where is the inception of Jimmy Connors Strokes, the lightness in the footwork of Mrs Gloria Connors but despite Connors and MacKenroe has these pushing forward forehand style of playing provided them to be succesful tennis professional tennis players the powerful stroke developed in the late 70's and early 80's nothing to do with Zverev, Sinner, Alcaraz straight powerful strokes and in the middle, Lendl, Bjorg, Marín Cilic, Berdych, Davidenko, Becker, Sampras, Phillipousis, Ivanisevic, or the greatest of all times Nadal, Djokovic and Federer. I would dare to say that Zwintek, Badosa, Muguruza, direct powerful strokes female player would beat Connors, MacKenroe and all the 70's male players. Sorry
Absolutely ridiculous. Female pro players, while very good at what they do, are many levels below male pro players. They lack the quickness, stamina, and speed of the men. This is why WTA points average less than four strokes. They hit is so hard because the opponent cannot cover the corners, more than two shots consecutively. Easy to hit winners against women, even WTA. Decent DII men are equivalent in ability to mainstream WTA players, and decent DI players can beat any of them. WTA players are primarily UTR level about 12-12.5 while ATP players are 15-16. Three to four UTR levels equates to 6-0, 6-0 every time, unless the higher player simply gets bored.
@@davidedwards4720 You didn't understand what I said. Foorwork sir *footwork*
@@FranklinAltunaCellistLawyer You said current WTA players would beat Connors and McEnroe in their prime, which is so preposterous I am not going to reply to you further because you clearly do not know enough about high level tennis to see why your statement is ludicrous.
@@davidedwards4720 Any of the 10 WTA Highest players like Garbiñe, Sabalenka, would beat Connors MacKenroe and Lendl generation mainly because is a more powerful atletismo and tennis Technique
I really don't care anything of You have written because You are *nobody* in this business
@@davidedwards4720 neither am i
Jimmy’s forehand is a copy of Gloria’s.
Look at Gloria's forehand drive a beauty in motion!
Gloria could play.