WIMBLEDON IMPRESSIONS : Fortnight’s Highlights: Taking a Glance Back

Wimbledon is over, and some personal impressions are in order:

--Of the thousands of hours played, and the hundreds of matches, the most exciting moment was Jennifer Capriati’s win over Martina Navratilova.

--Of the scores of news conferences I attended, the saddest was Navratilova’s after the Capriati match. Her last words, as she walked out saying that she will keep playing, were: “But I’m not sure how much heart I have left.”

--Andre Agassi is trying so hard to turn a negative image into a positive one, and he really became a superstar in these two weeks in the British press, which loves movie-star types who have groupies. But Agassi’s quarterfinal match with David Wheaton, in which he went through great dramatics over an injury that didn’t seem to hamper him much at times----left everybody shaking their heads again. He is such a great player, but there always seems to be some windmill out there at which he has to tilt. Other players lose and you understand why and how. Agassi loses and you kind of scratch your head and wonder what really went on.

--The second most exciting moment was back on a secondary court, watching Jimmy Connors, soon to be 39 years old, grind down a much younger Aaron Krickstein. If for no other reason than he gives such great hope to the elderly, Connors ought to keep playing for a couple of years.

--You wonder why Ivan Lendl has never quite cut it as a Madison Avenue desirable? On the middle Sunday, they let the public in for the first time ever, and a good time was had by all, except Lendl, who mocked it. He really has tried hard over the past few years to work on his image, but the only cure appears to be a personality transplant.

--Jim Courier took some pretty good hits in a recent Sports Illustrated article after he won the French Open. It was written that he was kind of brash and rude. That really bothered him, and it was fun to watch him try hard here to change that, rather than sulk about it. One of the best news conferences was the one, after he lost to Michael Stich, in which Courier gave his impressions of each of the five top young American players, including David Wheaton, whom Courier called, with no malice intended, a “Ken Doll.”

--After watching and listening for more than two weeks, it is obvious that the non-player who does the most for American tennis in particular, and the game of tennis in general, is Bud Collins. Collins is much more than a guy in loud pants who is quick with the quip on NBC. He does a daily column for the Boston Globe, usually well into the night after his broadcasting duties are finished; he does hundreds of radio interviews for all sorts of 50-watt stations that call him unannounced and constantly from all over America, and he is forever acting as a go-between for the foreign press and American players. One woman who told Collins she got interested in tennis because of his columns and broadcasting showed up at Wimbledon, unannounced, and got in one of the long lines for tickets. She eventually got in and sent a note to Collins that she made it and was there to watch. She is blind.

--The demons that rumble within John McEnroe never cease to amaze me. He did so well here, played well and articulated his feelings well and generally was a good adult role model in a game overflowing with mindless children. And then, he got into the late stages of his match with Stefan Edberg, a match in which he gave maximum effort but really had little chance to win, and blew up right near the end over a wide serve into the deuce court that was so obviously out that his ensuing tantrum was shocking. I was sitting right in line with the call and was amazed that he lost his cool over that. The next day, I was even more amazed at what he said to the linesman, triggering the $10,000 fine. McEnroe is so bright, so talented and has had such a good run, that I just wish he would watch Connors for a while and start catching on.

--Winning lines from the press box: Collins, on the strange disappearance of Monica Seles: “She’s out playing golf with Jimmy Hoffa.” Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press, after listening to a highly articulate and introspective Boris Becker after his loss in Sunday’s final: “Becker is the Hamlet of tennis.”