Tennis: The day the crowd went nuts

Pat Cash can scarcely believe it but it is 25 years since he played a significant part in what is still remembered as Super Saturday, one of the epic days in the history of US Open tennis.

Play at Flushing Meadows that day saw two thrilling five-set men's semifinals. John McEnroe beat Jimmy Connors in one, and 19-year-old Cash yielded two match points in the other, before losing a fifth-set tie-break to Ivan Lendl.

A quarter of a century on, Cash smiles at the memory.

"New York is notorious for the worst umpires," he says. "Just horrendous umpiring. I don't know why the Americans have worse eyesight than everyone else, but anyway, I was on the receiving end, losing a match point on a disputed call. It haunted me, but it made me keep pushing to get that bastard Lendl [which he triumphantly did three years later in the Wimbledon final]." A laugh. "Of course it wasn't his fault it was a bad line call."

As the match progressed, with the juicy prospect of McEnroe vs Connors to come, the crowd became raucous even by New York's famously animated standards. Lendl had lost in the two preceding finals, and was the sentimental favourite. But as the clear underdog Cash, too, attracted thunderous support.

"It was about half and half, and they were going nuts. McEnroe later said to me, 'I've got to thank you for beating Lendl up.' He'd been so sore after his semi, and was thinking 'oh God, I've got to play Lendl now'. Lendl had a pretty good record against Mac but then McEnroe went in the locker room and saw Lendl trying to touch his toes. He couldn't get past his knees."

Last year Andy Murray reached the final. Can the Scotsman go a step further and win it?

"He can and he loves the surface. But the balls suit him even more than the surface. The US Open balls are the fastest of the lot, in fact they've had to slow them down for the men; they're faster for the women.

"So Murray can hit a lot of winners, which he was less able to do at the French [Open] and Wimbledon.

"He'll win a Grand Slam, for sure, and he could get three or four, maybe even half a dozen. But that kind of depends on how long [Rafael] Nadal and [Roger] Federer stick around. Federer's not playing at quite the level he was a couple of years ago but he still hardly ever has an off day."

Still, Federer and Nadal have, surely, already mined every ounce of their prodigious ability. In Murray's game, Cash believes, there is still room for significant improvement.

"He has a very good attacking game, but he needs to learn when to use it. He'll work it out, because he's a really smart kid, really astute. I was quoted as calling him boring at Wimbledon, but I meant his voice, and he does have a boring voice.

"But he sure knows a lot about tennis. At Wimbledon and the French he wasn't sure when to step up, when to take the game to his opponent. But he volleys well, and that's one reason why he's got [ahead of Novak] Djokovic. Murray's able to come forward. Djokovic wants to but never has the balls to do it. And you reach a stage of your career when it becomes impossible to change.

"Having said that, [Andy] Roddick learnt to volley. [His former coach, Jimmy] Connors kept telling him to go forward, and eventually he did."

Roddick, too, is a major contender at the US Open, the tournament he won in 2003. It's fair to assume that the New York crowd will lend him fervent support, having booed Djokovic last year for having the temerity to beat him in the quarter-finals.

"The atmosphere there is the best of all the Grand Slams," says Cash. "The stadium's a bit of a dump, and the crowd are too far away from the players. But the fans make the place. The atmosphere on that old Louis Armstrong court was unbelievable."

Cash rather laments the demise of gamesmanship, at which John McEnroe so excelled, on the tennis court.

"Nadal's about the only one who does it now, bouncing the ball over and over, although it's more of a habit than gamesmanship. But the game needs more attitude. All the waving to the crowd and blowing kisses, I hate all that.

"[Andre] Agassi started that, and as much as he was a great player who did a lot for tennis, there were a couple of things he did that really messed the game up. One was not playing Davis Cup. He was the first, and it became a trend.

"So I blame Agassi for that, and blowing kisses to the crowd, which is real disrespectful to the other guy. Connors was always a gentleman. Whenever he won, he'd say the other guy was a great player, that he'd had a bad day, blah blah blah.

"I said on the BBC once that I hate players blowing kisses, and someone emailed to say 'hang on mate, you climbed through the stand [to embrace his entourage, after winning Wimbledon]'. I said 'wait, I did that once, and after I won, not in the first round of some tournament nobody gives a rat's arse about'."

Fair enough, but isn't he being inconsistent, calling for more attitude during a match, but for perfect decorum afterwards?

"Not at all. Nobody could be tougher to play than Connors. The year I won Wimbledon, I played him in the semi, and when I was two sets and 3-1 up he started clowning around with the crowd.

"Every time he hit a winner after that, the crowd roared. It was tough for me to finish that match off, and he knew exactly what he was doing, which is fine.

"I just want more personality in the game, and I see no reason why there can't be a bit of gamesmanship. Nadal has this superstition. He puts his water bottle in the same place every time at the change of ends, have you noticed that?

"I said to Michael Stich in the commentary box, 'Mate, 20 years ago that bottle wouldn't have lasted 10 seconds.' You'd kick it over, and say, 'Ooh, sorry Rafa, sorry mate, I didn't see that."'

But even Cash, even McEnroe, even Connors, had to defer to the king of gamesmanship: Ilie Nastase.

"I played him when I was still a junior, in a tournament in Bristol.

"It was only my fourth or fifth tournament, and I was drawn against Nastase.

"My coach said 'be careful, he'll do anything to disrupt your concentration', and sure enough, even before we started he was swearing, going 'thees is sheet, thees is sheet, I cannot play with thees sheet'.

"There were TV cameras there, and everyone was trying to get him to stop using offensive language. Eventually the referee came out and asked what was going on, and Nastase pointed to the gigantic towel he'd been given, and said 'thees not towel, thees is sheet'!"

- INDEPENDENT