YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS|121had beaten him in that final at Dallas in May, on a fast indoor carpet not totally dissimilar to grass. He had a habit of standing way back to receive; I knew I could get to net quickly on most of my serves and take command of the angles. Also, while Borg first serve was stronger than most people realize, he was never known as a volleyer, and his second serve could be a bit dicey. From the beginning, everything went according to plan. Early on, in fact, I was amazed at how easily I was winning. To tell the truth, I think I actually let up a little bithich was my first mistake. I won the first set 6�, and I was up 5� in the second, very close to taking a two-setsto-love lead, at which point I could have just kicked his behindhich is what I expected I was going to do. But my plan went off the rails. Some of it was just bad luck. First, I had had to play Connors the day beforehich, because it was the first time I played him at Wimbledon since our �7 semifinal, was obviously an emotional match. To make matters worse, though, since I had spent the past year pushing Jimmy out of his number-two spot in the rankings, there was bad blood between us, and now it was showing itself in the form of some serious testiness. At that point, my relationship with Connors was the exact opposite of my relationship with Borghere was little respect for the man or the occasion of playing him. Like two club fighters, we trash-talked each other on the changeovers: Jimmy called me a baby, and I told him what he could kiss. It was exciting, in a perverse way, but it also turned out to be a very draining four-set win. As if that weren enough, because of a rain delay earlier, I had had to play the doubles semifinal right after my match with Connors! Borg, however, had played his singles semi on Friday, so he got to spend his Saturday resting. Borg never played doubles. Connors stopped playing them very early in his career, and Lendl rarely played themut I loved playing doubles,