[0:00]The first time I saw John play, really saw him, I did not say anything. There was nothing to say. He was 18, a qualifier. Nobody knew him. He walked onto the court at Wimbledon and he looked wrong. The hair, the way he argued before the first point was even finished. Everything about him said, this person does not belong here. But then he served. I had never seen a service motion like that. He turned his back to the net almost completely. You could not read it, you could not prepare. The ball was already past you before you understood what had happened. And the volleys. He did not hit them hard. He placed them. There is a difference. Hard, you can sometimes reach, placed correctly, you cannot. I watched him that day and I thought, this is going to be a problem. Not for that tournament, for me, personally. Because I had never faced anyone where I felt before the match even started that I needed to play my absolute best just to have a chance. That feeling was new. I did not say that to anyone at the time, but I thought it, and I was right. John was a problem. A specific problem. I treated it like that. He was left-handed, that matters. His serve moved away from you on the do side, pulled you off the court, on the add side it jammed you, you had no room. And before you recovered, he was already at the net. So, the question was simple. How do you stop him from coming in? You return deep, very deep. You push him back far enough that approaching the net becomes a bad decision, that is the theory. The difficulty is doing it consistently, point after point, set after set, under pressure, because the moment you give him a short ball, even one, he is up there and the point is over. I hired a new coach. I changed my diet. I worked on my fitness. All of it was was pointed at one thing, being able to maintain that level of returning for an entire match. People found that obsessive. I found it logical. You asked me if I respected John, of course. He was extraordinary. But respect does not mean you accept losing. I did not accept losing to anyone. I just had to work harder with him than with others. That was the reality I did not complain about it. Let me tell you something about John, he was not like anyone else out there. I was the angriest guy on tour, everyone knew that. I came out there to fight, every single point, every single match. That was me, that was how I played. But John? John did something different. He did not just compete with you, he pulled you into his world. His arguments with the umpire, the racket throwing, the constant noise, you think that hurt him? It did not hurt him, it fired him up. And while you were standing there watching the circus, trying to figure out what was happening, he was already thinking three points ahead. That is what people never understood about him. They thought the temper was a weakness. They kept waiting for it to cost him. It almost never did. I go out there to squash my opponent. That is my mentality.
[3:38]But with John you could not squash him that way. Because every time you thought you had him rattled, every time you thought the drama was working in your favor, he would hit something that reminded you exactly who you were dealing with. I had true rivalries in my career. No hugs, no soft moments, but John was different from the rest. He did not just beat you, he made you feel like you were playing his game the whole time. You know, my game was built on one idea. Keep the ball in play, be patient, wait for the other guy to make a mistake. That worked against almost everyone. Against John, I waited for mistakes that never came. Not because he was perfect, but because there were no long rallies. The point ended before I had time to set up, before I had time to find my rhythm. He served, he came forward, he put the volley away. Two shots, maybe three, done. I remember thinking, okay, this time, I will pass him. I will go down the line, catch him off guard. And sometimes the shot was good, a really good passing shot, and he volleyed it anyway, into a corner I did not think existed. That is the thing about John's volleys that people do not talk about enough. It was not the speed, it was the placement. He found angles that should not have been possible from where he was standing. So here I am, a baseliner who needs long points to do anything useful, and John is ending every point in about four seconds. I prepared for a marathon, he was running sprints. It is a little bit funny, actually. We were playing the same sport, but on those days, not really. What I noticed about John was not the serve, not the volley. It was what happened before the first point. He walked onto the court, and something shifted. The crowd, the umpire, everyone, they were already watching him, not the match, him. And if you were the other player, you felt that. I am also a serve and volley player. I understood his game technically, I knew what he was trying to do, but playing him was still uncomfortable. Because from the very first moment you were reacting to him instead of focusing on yourself. He would question a call, bounce the ball an extra time, walk slowly between points. None of it looked calculated, it just looked like John being John, but the effect was was real. You lost your concentration, you started thinking about what he might do next instead of what you needed to do next. I realized this clearly after one of our matches. I sat down and and thought about what had gone wrong. And I understood I had spent the whole match playing his tennis, not mine. That is difficult thing to admit, but it was true. The most dangerous thing about John was not his technique. It was that he made the court feel like his territory from the moment he arrived. When I was a kid in Germany, I watched John on television. Every chance I had. He was everything, the arguments, the shots, the drama. But what stayed with me was not the temper. It was that he never seemed beatable. Even when he was losing a set, you had this feeling that he knew something you did not. I grew up wanting to play like him, that serve, those volleys.
[7:30]I studied him for hundreds of hours. Then the first time I actually stood on the other side of the net from him, everything I had studied meant nothing. Because watching and playing are two completely different worlds. On television you see what he does. On court you feel how early he reach everything. Before you have decided where you are hitting the ball, he has already moved, not after you hit it, before. I remember one point specifically, I thought I had him. I set up perfectly, I hit the pass exactly where I wanted. He volleyed it away like it was nothing. Like he had known since the previous shot exactly what I was going to do. I had watched that man for hundreds of hours. I still could not surprise him. That is when I understood John was not just talented. He was operating at a different level of the game entirely. 1984 at Wimbledon. I do not make excuses. That day John played the best tennis I have ever seen from anyone in my life. I am including everyone. And I was ready. I had won that tournament before. I knew the court, I knew the conditions. I came in with a game plan. It did not matter. From the first game, everything he hit went exactly where it needed to go. The serve, the approach, the volley. There was no gap. No moment where I thought, okay, here it is, here is my opening. Every time I created something, he was already there. Every time I pushed him back, he found a way forward anyway. You know what the strangest feeling is? When you are out there fighting as hard as you possibly can, giving everything, and it still feels like you are standing still. That is what that day was. You know, I hate losing more than I love winning. That that has always been true, but walking off that court, I was not angry at John. I could not be. What he did that afternoon was something I had never experienced before, and honestly, never experienced again. There are days when a player becomes something beyond what you can prepare for. That was one of those days, and John was that player. After 1981, something was different. I do not usually talk about this. I lost to John twice that year. First at Wimbledon, then at the US Open, two finals. And after the second one, I left. I did not stay for the ceremony. I just needed to go. People have said many things about why I retired, that I was burned out, that the travel was too much, that I had won everything already. There is some truth in those things, but there is also this. For the first time in my career, I walked onto a court and I asked myself a question I had never asked before. Not against Connors, not against anyone, only against John. I asked, is this enough what I have, is it enough today? I had never asked that before a match. Never. My whole career, I walked out knowing. With John, in those last matches, I was no longer sure. When that question appears in your head before the first point, that is a sign. I recognized it. I had always said to myself, when the motivation is gone, stop. Do not continue just to continue. It was not that John beat me. Many players beat me. It was that he was the first one who made me doubt myself before the match even began. That was new. And I did not want to get used to it. Everyone talks about the tantrums, the arguments with the umpire, the racket, the shouting. I understand why it was dramatic, it was television, but that was not the frightening part. The frightening part was the pace changes. You are in a rally. You have found a rhythm. You know how fast the ball is coming. You know where it is going, your feet are moving correctly. And then without any warning, without any visible change in his swing, the ball comes back slower or with different spin or at a completely different angle. Your rhythm is gone, your feet are in the wrong place, and now you are scrambling and John is exactly where he wants to be. I am a big hitter. I won with power. I needed the ball to come at a certain pace so I could load up and drive through it. John understood this about me. He refused to give me that ball. He took my weapon away by simply not cooperating with what I needed. I remember thinking during one match, just hit it hard, Boris. Give me something I can work with. He never did. I needed strength to beat him. He did not need strength to beat me. He just needed to be smarter. And he always was. That is the most uncomfortable thing to admit, but it is true. The French Open final in 1984. People still ask me about that match. John won the first two sets comfortably. I was not playing badly. He was just better in those sets. That that happens, you you do not panic, you you adjust. What I found in the third set was this. If I returned his serve deep enough and moved forward, threatened to come in, he started approaching the net at moments that were not ideal for him. He was reacting to me instead of dictating. That was the opening. It was not dramatic. There was no single turning point. It was just gradual. Point by point, I executed the plan. My fitness held, his did not quite. People want me to say I felt something special in that moment, that it was emotional, that winning against John meant something beyond tennis. I will say this, when it was over, I thought the preparation worked. That was the feeling, not joy, exactly, more like confirmation. John said afterward it was the worst loss of his life. I believe him, he had two sets, he had everything and he lost it. That is what made him dangerous even in defeat. You always felt that he should have won, that the better player lost that day. I disagree, but I understand why people felt that way. He was that good. There is something about John that I find genuinely interesting to think about even now. He was completely different with different opponents. Against almost everyone on tour, John was vocal, loud, always something to say to the umpire, always some argument. That was just how he played. But against Bjorn, nothing. You watch those matches back and John is almost quiet, respectful, even, like a completely different person. So what does that tell you? It tells you John knew exactly what he was doing. Against most of us, the noise was part of the game. Against Bjorn, he chose not to use it, because Bjorn would not have reacted anyway, and John was smart enough to understand that. That is actually more frightening than the tantrums. The tantrums you could see coming. But this, the ability to read each opponent and adjust the psychological approach entirely, that is a different level of intelligence on a tennis court. Against me, he was noisy, fine. I am Swedish. I tried not to engage with it, but I always knew it was there, working on me in some way I could not fully control, and John knew it too. Most players have one way of competing. John had a different version for each person he played. You can work on your forehand, your fitness, you return. How do you prepare for someone who has already figured out your specific weakness, not just technically, but mentally, before the match even starts? That is a question I never found a good answer to, and I do not think I was the only one. The style of tennis John played is gone now. Serve and volley with that kind of touch, you do not see it anymore. People say it disappeared because the courts got slower, because rackets changed, because baseliners got better at passing. All of that is true. But I think there is another reason. What John did was not really a style, it was him. You cannot separate the tennis from the person. The way he read the game, the way he felt the ball, the the angles he found, that was not something you learn from a coach, it was just John. I played serve and volley my whole career. I was comfortable at the net. I understood that game as well as almost anyone. And I still could not do what he did, not even close. I beat him a number of times in our later matches, but I never felt comfortable playing him, not once. Every match, from the first point, there was this awareness, one loose shot, one moment of hesitation, and the point is over. That that feeling never went away. He was called many things during his career. Some of them not very polite, but the players who actually faced him, we knew what we were dealing with. There was John, and then there was everyone else.
