American tennis may not be the dominant force it once was, but it certainly remains in a stable place, with a few key names at the forefront.
Coco Gauff stands alone at the top, but just behind her are stars like Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton, all of whom will have aspirations of reaching the kind of world ranking that the former currently boasts.
However, for all the talent on display, they pail in comparison to those who came before them.
Especially the likes of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe.
Jimmy Connors looks back on his John McEnroe battles
This duo shared a legendary rivalry on the court across the 1970s and 80s, trading iconic matches and titles for fun alongside Bjorn Borg amongst others.
However, their shared nationality made this particular relationship all the more interesting, which Connors has now sought to look back on.
Speaking on his Advantage Connors podcast, he reminisced on a fine career shared with these stars: ‘Well you know, Mac [John McEnroe] and [Bjorn] Borg and [Ivan] Lendl were my competition. We were all, the four of us, vying for number one, two, three and four for so many years.
‘Borg I never beat at Wimbledon. He never beat me at the US Open. So I traded one or two somewhere along the lines and he would with me also.
‘Mac, I played him at the US Open and Wimbledon. I think beating him in 82, in the finals, it was 6-4 in the fifth, was one of my best matches because he was at the top of his game and on grass which was his best surface at the time.
‘I had been written off a lot over a couple of years. I had a new family and I hadn’t been winning Grand Slams, I had been a semi-finalist and ‘Oh Connors is finished at 26 years old’ and all that.
‘To come back and beat him was pretty special.’
This came after Connors explained what made Bjorn Borg so unstoppable at Wimbledon.
Who was better out of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe?
As two American tennis titans present around the same era, they were naturally bound to draw comparisons.
Especially given both had a penchant for a tantrum on court, albeit with McEnroe’s explosivity far more well-documented.
However, putting their respective careers side by side and there is very little to separate the two really.
Connors, who enjoyed a lengthy 24-year career before retiring in 1996, won all but one of the available Grand Slams, with one Australian Open title, two Wimbledon titles and a further five US Open titles to his name.
Roland Garros always eluded him, reaching the semi-finals on four separate occasions, but winning the end-of-year tour will have offset that frustration.
McEnroe, meanwhile, boasted just one less Grand Slam title than his compatriot, with three Wimbledon titles and four US Open titles. He never won in Paris or Melbourne, yet took home the tour finals on three separate occasions.
Connors remains the player with the most titles in the Open Era, and thus his 109 dwarfs McEnroe’s 77, yet it was the 65-year-old who led their respective head-to-head record, 20-14.
It is hard not to outline Connors as the better of the two, having won the more important titles with more variation. However, the two respectively shaped American tennis into the juggernaut it remains today.
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