FOREST HILLS, QUEENS, NY - September 3, 1973
It was a busy day yesterday for The Sports Time Traveler™. The 1973 Mets were in St. Louis for their biggest game of the season so far. They lost 7 - 4 to fall 5.5 games behind and remain in 5th place in the NL East.
And back in New York, the U.S. Open Tennis Championship was heating up, literally, as the temperature reached 93 degrees.
There was an interesting match in the stadium that I wanted to see and so I had to make the virtual leap back from the Mississippi river to a little beyond the East river to the Tennis Club at Forest Hills in New York.
They’re in the 3rd round of the 1973 U.S. Open and the #3 seed Arthur Ashe was playing. Ashe was the first African-American to win a major men’s singles title with his historic U.S. Open championship in 1968. Then he followed that up with a straight set victory in the 1970 Australian Open, one of the 4 majors of tennis. And last year he lost a 5 set thriller in the U.S. Open final here at Forest Hills to Ilie Nastase.
Ashe was the prohibitive favorite to move on to the round of 16 as he was playing a relative unknown - a 17 year old from Sweden with a difficult to pronounce name - Bjorn Borg.
I say relative unknown because some people here had seen his name in the sports sections a couple of months ago. Borg had been gifted an opportunity to play in Wimbledon when nearly everyone in the Association of Tennis Professionals decided to boycott the hallowed event due to Wimbledon’s decision to ban Yugoslavia’s Nikki Pilic from the tournament. Pilic had refused to play for the Yugoslavian Davis Cup team. And Wimbledon took a stand against such behavior.
The massive walkout by every star in men’s tennis, except Ilie Nastase, left Wimbledon with a decimated field that consisted mostly of amateurs, fake amateurs from inside the iron curtain, and old Brits. And a 17 year old from Sweden named Bjorn Borg.
Bjorn Borg amazed the crowds in the early rounds with his smashing shots. And he made it all the way to the quarterfinals.
Borg, with his long blond locks, also attracted voluminous attention from British girls at Wimbledon. The New York Times reported, “At Wimbledon the girls mobbed the wiry blond youth and he had to go to desperate lengths to escape them.”
Now, Ashe vs. Borg at the U.S. Open was just too intriguing to pass up.
When I arrived at Forest Hills, (virtually of course) they were already in the 4th set. Ashe had taken the 1st set as expected 7 - 6. But the young Borg took the 2nd and 3rd sets, winning each one 6 - 4.
Here’s what I saw in the 4th set:
At the 4:00 time mark on the video watch as Borg hits 2 great passing shots on Ashe’s serve to go up love - 30 in the 3rd game of the 4th set. Ashe leads the set 2 games to 0 at this point and if Ashe can hold serve he will have a commanding 3 - 0 lead in the set putting him on track to even the match at 2 sets all.
But Borg hits another great passing shot to win the game at the 5:50 mark. Now Ashe leads the set by just 1 game at 2 - 1.
At the 12:25 mark on the tape the set is tied at 3 all. Borg hits a brilliant back hand winner off Ashe’s serve to reach break point. A moment later when Ashe hits Borg’s service return into the net, Borg has broken Ashe’s service to win the 7th game of the set to go ahead 4 - 3.
Now Borg has a big opportunity serving with a 4 - 3 lead. He opens the 8th game with a fine passing shot to go ahead 15 - love.
The Sensational Sequence
Then begins a sequence which is unlike any other I’ve ever seen in tennis. It’s truly sensational and I highly recommend you take a minute to watch it.
Here I’ve queued up the tape at the 13:10 mark to watch the sequence:
At the 13:10 mark on the tape, Borg hits a nice ace to increase his lead to 30 - love.
At 13:25 Borg hits an absolutely stunning ace. His 2nd in a row. But this one is incredible. It blows by Ashe, just inside the line. It was untouchable. Ashe had no chance on it. And it puts Borg up 40 - love in the 8th game of the set.
As the fans roar, you can hear the announcer make a curious call as he says, “hold the phones”, a really odd phrase in 1973, more than 20 years before the advent of cell phones. I’m assuming he meant hold your landline phone at home.
A moment later Borg actually strikes an even faster looking ace by Ashe to win the game. It’s his 3rd consecutive ace. It blazed past Ashe. This one is so extraordinary that the crowd gasps at his magnificence.
Dave Hirshey of the New York Daily News described the sequence of 3 aces in this morning’s paper, “demoralizing aces of such astonishing ferocity that Ashe never even lifted his racket.”
Borg is now ahead 5 - 3 in the 4th set. The 17 year old is 1 game away from a shocking upset of the #3 seed and 1972 U.S. Open finalist.
In the 9th game Borg went ahead love- 40 on Ashe’s serve to reach triple match point. But Ashe came back to take 4 straight points and extend the match to another game. Borg still led the set 5 - 4 and now had service again.
The game was 30 - 30 when Borg hit an overhead smash passed Ashe to reach match point again.
Serving on match point, Ashe was barely able to get to Borg’s serve and his return floated high into the frontcourt. Borg rushed to the net and drilled it hard to the left. Ashe barely reached it again and this time his return hit the net.
Game, set, match.
17 year old Bjorn Borg had just won the biggest match of his young life to move to the round of 16 at the U.S. Open.
The crowd gave Bjorn Borg a standing ovation.
A Startling Upset
Borg had won the match 6 - 7, 6 - 4, 6 - 4, 6- 4.
Dave Hirshey called it a, “startling upset.” And he opened his article today with this sentence, “A new hero was Bjorn yesterday at Forest Hills.”
Borg told United Press International, “I like playing here better than Wimbledon. The girls leave me alone. They don’t know who I am.”
Maybe the girls don’t know who Bjorn Borg is here in New York, but true tennis fans will never forget what he did today.
The Sports Time Traveler™ will continue following the 1973 U.S. Open.
Dedication to Grandpa Joe
The Sports Time Traveler™ wishes to dedicate this article to the memory of my grandpa Joe. He was an enormous tennis fan and I think he always regretted a tiny bit that as much of a sports fan as I was growing up, I was never into tennis like he was.
I don’t know for certain, but I would bet that on Sunday, September 2, 1973, grandpa Joe watched 17 year old Bjorn Borg’s stunning upset victory over #3 seed Arthur Ashe and those 3 sensational aces in a row.
Watching that sensational sequence now and really appreciating the wonder of it, makes me feel a connection to what grandpa Joe liked about tennis. And so I’ve been thinking about him the entire time I wrote this article.
Grandpa Joe and I did experience many, many other sporting events that we enjoyed together. Often we were with my father as well, who did more than anyone to cultivate my love of sports.
Here’s Grandpa Joe and I in one of my favorite sports spectator moments with him as we stood track side during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
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