SOME mornings after a particularly incendiary night at the US Open, the sweepers would come in to clean up the court and the night's trash.
And one would say to the other, "Jimmy was playing last night."
"How do you know?""Because these look like his guts all over the court."
This is fiction posing as fact, but you can't tell the difference. Because for James Scott Connors tennis was not a game but some primitive bloodsport, where only one man could be left standing; losing was a insult to his manhood, and it seemed to spur the beast within him.
It is why his coach Pancho Segura, once remarked: "The keed is a keeler."
These days you could say the same about new world No.1 Lleyton Hewitt.
Though less intimidating, combustible and colourful than Connors, Hewitt wears his give-a-100 per cent die-but-win, screw-the-world, label like a badge of honour, much like boxers view a welt on the eyebrow and a split lip after a victorious fight.
Sport is mottled by an unlikely crew of competitors; some deep-freeze cool like Borg silently battling within, some thin-lipped and focussed like Lendl, some complicated like Becker who carried with him a boy's exuberance and a philosopher's broodiness, some ugly yet elegant like McEnroe.
And then there are the fighters, often men (and women like Billie Jean King) who lack subtlety, who rattle convention, who see competition from the exaggerated perspective of the world versus me. They see no virtue in aesthetics but only in winning, view each match as a test of personal courage and take an unlikely pride in suffering. Rockets could go to Mars and return fuelled by their fury.
All sport has seen its fair share of such inflexible warriors. It was said once of boxer Roberto Duran, "Given his choice, he would fight 15 rounds in a telephone booth without intermissions." American jockey Bill Hartack, once fell from a horse, tore his muscle and sprained his back, raced two days later, failed to win, and had a fellow jockey say, "You did a wonderful job coming second." Snarled Hartack, "I don't care if I have one leg, I wanted to win."
Hewitt has this quality, one recognised by Patrick Rafter at the recent Masters Cup when he said, "He's a stubborn little mongrel." Hewitt may not have appreciated the choice of words, but certainly the sentiment.
Like Connors, it is hard to find affection for Hewitt, but hard not to grudgingly admire him. It is the first of a few similarities. Both men return serve as if guided by some unseen radar, have reasonably inelegant games, and make opponents play extra shots through a dogged refusal to concede a point is over. Both are finely balanced too and that is not mere technique but a case of having an invisible chip on both shoulders.
But mostly perhaps (though specially for Hewitt), both men's inadequacy of gifts has been compensated for by obstinacy.
Connors' hands have been described as "feminine"; his strokes were flat and girlish, taught to him by his mother and grandmother; his serve as someone said was a case of "of an almighty swing, an almighty grunt and out pops a mouse." Yet he won eight Grand Slam titles, and at age 39, he reached the semi-finals of the 1991 US Open, unable to sit down because of cramp, walking around attached to a drip.
Hewitt is similarly challenged (in the modern context). He is limited in height (vertically challenged was Rafter's description), lacks heft in his strokes and has a serve that is certainly not nuclear. It means he must work hard, always, and despite a breathing complaint he tracks each ball on court relentlessly, as if promising he will not quit till his dying breath. He makes so clear his refusal to lose that it confounds his opponents: tenacity can be both tiring and tiresome. Sebastien Grosjean, his French opponent in the Masters Cup, possesses a restricted English vocabulary and lacks the nuances of grammar. It did not matter, for it took just four simple words for him to pay requisite tribute to Hewitt: "He never give up."
Hewitt's strengths need not be articulated, but he recently listed them anyway: "being very mentally tough" and 'inner self belief." Players will not enjoy seeing the draw posted during tournaments and finding their names matched with Hewitt's. It is an exhausting proposition. If they are not ready to play, they must be ready to go home. They know victory will rarely come cheap.
Lew Hoad, the great Australian, could well have been talking about Hewitt when he said once of another fighter, Pancho Gonzales:
"The breaks can go against him for point after point... but he does not lose his sullen confidence. All this comes from an intense searing belief in the pre eminence of his own game. I would have to defeat him; he would not defeat himself." That Hewitt's idol is Rocky, the audacious fictional fighter who took every punch on a pugnacious chin but wouldn't go down, is no mere coincidence.
Connors' career is littered, and defined by, impossible feats: 1-6, 1-6, 1-4 down to Mikael Pernfors at Wimbledon 1987; down sets to love and match point to Jean Francois Caujolle at the 1980 French Open; down in almost every match at the 1991 US Open, yet scrambling back to victory. One year, after another gritty example of Connors' trench-warfare, a French newspaper put it best: CONNORS JUSQU'AU DERNIER SOUFFLE (''Connors Until the Last Gasp'').
Hewitt's short career, he is just becoming a man, is already brimful with similar tales. In 1999, dismissed as an upstart by Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the Davis Cup, Hewitt responded by saying he would "kill" Kafelnikov and effectively did in straight sets; in Brazil this year, in Gustavo Kuerten's hometown, on the French Open champions favoured clay, he majestically dismantled the Brazilian.
As his Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald said then, "I've taken time and I'm trying not to exaggerate but I believe it was the best win I've seen.''
There are major differences, of course, between both men: stylistically (Hewitt's strokeplay is less explosive and lacks Connors' aggressive intent and he does not so much take the game to his opponent as bide his time waiting to counter-punch) and in attitude (Hewitt has not Connors' strut, but is more gracious post-match unlike Connors who had few compliments for his opponents).
But mostly, while he has sinned occasionally and been unrepentant, Hewitt is a choirboy in front of Connors' boorishness.
An old cliche now arrives to haunt Hewitt: that getting to No.1 is hard, but staying there is harder still. Big men like Safin and Roddick will launch thunderbolts in his direction, baseliners like Kuerten and Ferrero will test him with their own resolve, old-timers like Agassi will push him around: every tournament there will be an attempt to emasculate him.
Hewitt, may tire of this one day and his legs run out of steam, but it will take some while. Till then, you sense, he will relish the challenge, roll up his sleeves, grease his cheeks with war paint, spit on his palms, put his chin out and say "C'mon."
And the men who sweep the courts every morning at tournaments across the world will have a new tale to tell.
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