US Open 1983

The eighth and last major title for Jimmy Connors, who beat Ivan Lendl second straight year in a 4-set final. It was a tournament which made a “Bollettieri” name famous. Two young pupils of his tennis academy (he’d opened it five years before) made a fuss: 16-year-old Aaron Krickstein, and three years older Jimmy Arias, who advanced to the semi-finals and looked like a future major champion, but it was a highlight of his career, the American never again played in the last 4 of a Grand Slam event (he didn’t even win a tournament after 1983!). Krickstein had prevailed two dramatic 5-setters and winning a fifth set maintained a hallmark to the end of his career. Read more…