1.
GV: Jimmy Connors serves and loses point (deuce)
0.16

2.
GV: Connors serves and wine point.
0.43

3.
GV: Connors serves and hits shot into net after rally.
1.07

4.
GV: Connors serves and takes point to win first set.
1.23

5.
SV: net court judge
1.25

6.
GV: Roscoe Tanner serves and wins point
1.76

7.
GV: crowd
1.39

8.
GV: championship point Tanner serves and hits ball into net. layers shake hands and leave court.
2.00



Initials RH/1925


SPORT: TENNIS

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Tennis....and for the second time in three years, Jimmy Connors has won the United States professional indoor championship. Playing in the Spectrum Stadium, Philadelphia on Sunday (29 January), he took the title by beating his fellow American, Roscoe Tanner 6-2, 6-4, 6-3.

SYNOPSIS: First set with Connors serving. He was playing Tannr for the 20th time. Connors had beaten Tanner 11 times in the previous matches, but lost this point after being stretched to deuce.

Connors reached the final just 12 hours after defeating Brian Gottfried in a gruelling five-set match. Tanner had enjoyed an easier three-set win over Eddie Dibbs, and in the previous round, he beat the number two seed, Bjorn Borg. Connors seemed to have fully recovered from the rigours of the Gottfried match.

In its early stages, this final had the look and feel of a close-fought encounter.

Connors was serving well, and so, too, was Tanner, whose powerful game depends so much on his savage left-handed service.

But once the two left-handers settled down, it was Connors who held the advantage, with his greater mobility the precision of his ground-strokes. Serving here, Connors, wins the point to take the first set 6-2.

Throughout the two-hour match, Tanner got to break point six times but only managed to take Connors' service once and he paid dearly for letting such chances slip by.

Connors was clearly the master on the slow carpet surface, which had taken the sting from Tanner's strokes. On match point to Connors, Tanner nets and it's all over. For Connors, the victory ended a month in which he won almost 200,000 dollars in just three tournaments.