A number of fans on the court began to taunt Connors, who walked off the court alongside Henderson, his mother and other members of his inner circle. He headed to the locker room, picked up his gear and left the club — an exit highlighted by Connors spitting on a tree — and entered a small blue Ford.

Was it the beginning of the end for Jimmy Connors? Not quite. Call it the end of the beginning.

Tough Times in the City

New York City, on the ropes, reeled and rallied. There had been the 1977 launch of “I Love New York,” an advertising campaign intended to tell the world what made the city like none other. The mayor’s race ended in November, won by an underdog, Representative Edward I. Koch, who in the wake of the blackout had run a campaign strongly focused on law and order.

Koch was inaugurated on Jan. 1, 1978. “These have been hard times,” the new mayor said. “We have been tested by fire. ... We have been shaken by troubles that would have destroyed any other city. But we are not any other city. We are the City of New York, and New York in adversity towers above any other city in the world.”

That same week, Connors returned to New York to play the season-ending Grand Prix Masters tournament (now the ATP Finals). As Connors prepared to play Vilas, Henderson stood next to Connors and wondered if he was nervous about the crowd. Would it be as hostile to him as it had been the last time he’d played in New York?

Image Credit... Liam Cobb

But this was not Forest Hills — it was Madison Square Garden, home to basketball and hockey, far removed from the club. “The Garden crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Connors,” Henderson wrote. “Gone was the highbrow sophistication exhibited by the Forest Hills crowd that afforded it the luxury of rooting against their country’s best player.”

Though Connors narrowly lost to Vilas, 7-5 in the third, the round-robin format kept him alive. In words that would have pleased Koch, Connors said, “Don’t count me out.” Three days later he won the tournament, rallying from 0-2 in the third to beat Bjorn Borg, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.