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Jimmy Connors (1952)

Tennis is an outdoor sport which can be played between two players or four players. Players utilize a stringed racquet to hit a rubber ball, hollow inside covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. In some places tennis is referred to as lawn tennis. This game started in England and was the most popular amongst the upper class of society. Presently tennis is an Olympic sport, as well as, it is played in various tournaments including the four Grand Slams in many countries, by people of all ages and classes.

There are three different court surfaces it is played on namely, clay court, grass court and hardcourt. Depending on the surface, each one provides a different movement of speed and bounce for the ball, which in turn affects the level of play of individual players.

James Scott Connors was born on September 2, 1952 in East Saint. Louis, Illinois and is a former American tennis champion who was the World number 1 player for 160 consecutive weeks from July, 1974 to August, 1977. He was also the world number 1 player an additional 8 times throughout his career. During his career, he won eight Grand Slam singles titles and two Grand Slam doubles titles. He is often considered to be one of the top male tennis players of all time.

Connors went to college for a year at UCLA, University of California Los Angeles, where he won the NCAA, National Collegiate Athletic Association singles title in 1971. He turned professional in 1972 and won his first professional title later that year at Jacksonville, Florida. Connors reached the world’s number 1 ranking in July 1974 and held it for 159 straight weeks. Over the course of his career, he held the world number 1 ranking for a total of 263 weeks.

The defining moment of Connors' later career came in 1991. His career had seemed to be at an end in 1990, when he played only three tournament matches, dropping to Number 936 in the world rankings.

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