sport. Amateur and professional tennis players
trained according to these research concepts to maxi-
mize their performance. One notable player, Martina
Navratilova, literally transformed herself with diet
and physical conditioning into the greatest female
tennis player of the 1980’s.
Players The four major professional tennis tour-
naments of the world (known as the grand slam tour-
naments) include the French, Australian, and U.S.
Opens and Wimbledon. The best of the men’s play-
ers of the early 1980’s included Jimmy Connors,
Björn Borg, and John McEnroe. Two of the greatest
matches in the history of Wimbledon occurred in
1980 and 1981. In 1980, Borg defeated McEnroe in
five sets to win Wimbledon, which included a thrill-
ing fourth-set tiebreaker won by McEnroe eighteen
points to sixteen. Two months later, McEnroe de-
feated Borg, again in five sets, to win the U.S. Open.
In 1981, the two men met again in the finals at
Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, with McEnroe win-
ning both tournaments. The physical skills and psy-
chological will exhibited by both players made these
matches memorable, but McEnroe’s anger and dis-
respectful behavior in those tournaments made
headlines all over the world as well. McEnroe won
Wimbledon in 1981, 1983, and 1984, and the U.S.
Open in 1980 and 1981. Connors won Wimbledon
in 1982 and the U.S. Open in 1982 and 1983. Later
in the decade, the best of the male professionals in-
cluded Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg,
and Boris Becker. During the 1980’s, Lendl won
seven grand slam singles tournaments and finished
second ten times. Wilander won seven grand slam
singles tournaments and finished second four times.
Edberg and Becker each won four grand slam sin-
gles titles. Becker was only seventeen years old when
he won Wimbledon in 1985.
Among the women’s competition, the 1980’s is
best known for the number of tournaments won by
and the rivalry between Navratilova and Chris Evert
(Evert-Lloyd). Evert won nine grand slam singles
tournaments, was second ten times, and clearly was
the public favorite. However, in terms of grand slam
victories in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles,
Navratilova was the greatest player, male or female,
of the 1980’s. She won fifteen grand slam singles
titles, came in second ten times, and was ranked
number one longer than Evert. Pam Shriver and
Navratilova won twenty-one grand slam doubles tour-
naments during the 1980’s, and Navratilova also won
four mixed doubles grand slam tournaments. In
1985-1987, Navratilova was in the singles final in all
eleven of the grand slam tournaments that she en-
tered. A very rare achievement occurred in 1987,
when she won the singles, doubles, and mixed dou-
bles, all the available events, at the U.S. Open. Away
from the tennis court, she received a lot of media at-
tention for her public declaration of her lesbian
identity. As a world-famous athlete and public figure,
she handled the media attention with pride and
poise and added awareness and public sensitivity to
issues concerning equal rights and women’s rights.
Another great female professional of the late
1980’s was Steffi Graf of Germany, who won eight
grand slam singles titles between 1987 and 1989. In
1988, she had one of the greatest years in the history
of tennis, winning all four grand slam singles tourna-
ments and even the gold medal at the 1988 Olympic
Games. Historians refer to this accomplishment as
the “golden slam.”
Hall of Famers Many great players were inducted
into the International Tennis Hall of Fame during
the 1980’s, including Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad in
1980, Rod Laver in 1981, Charlotte Dod in 1983, Ar-
thur Ashe in 1985, John Newcombe in 1986, and
Billie Jean King and Björn Borg in 1987. Ashe, a
three-time grand slam singles champion, is a special
figure in sports history, as he is the greatest male Af-
rican American tennis player of all time and was a
leader of the world civil rights movement. He was es-
pecially active in was the antiapartheid movement in
South Africa. He made world news headlines in 1988
when he announced that he had contracted human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) through blood trans-
fusions during two major heart surgeries. The het-
erosexual Ashe’s personal battle with acquired im-
munodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) increased world
awareness about the disease and brought attention
to the fact that it was not one to affect only homosex-
uals. Ashe also emphasized the importance of devel-
oping valid testing methods of donated blood.
Impact Tennis in the 1980’s saw great performances
by a number of stars, from the fiery John McEnroe to
the greatest player of the decade, Martina Navra-
tilova. Increased sports coverage by television net-
works as well as notable competition, such as that
between Navratilova and Evert, and Borg and Mc-
Enroe, increased the popularity of the sport.956 Tennis The Eighties in America