📍Belleville, IL, USA
1952 – 1968“Jimmy Connors was born in East St Louis, Illinois, in September 1952 and grew up there and in nearby Belleville, working-class towns across the Mississippi from St Louis. His mother, Gloria, was a nationally ranked player and tennis teacher who had learned the game from her own mother, Bertha Thompson, and when she was pregnant with Jimmy she cleared the ground behind the family house to build a tennis court. Jimmy and his older brother, Johnny, learned the game there from their mother and grandmother, whom the boys called Two Mom. Gloria coached him relentlessly, making him hit hundreds of groundstrokes within inches of the baseline and teaching him to take the ball early and attack. Because he was small, she taught him to use his opponents' pace and to fight for every point. East St Louis had no indoor courts, so in winter he practised on a Knights of Columbus basketball court and then on the polished wooden floor of the local National Guard armory. He played on public courts too, and has said that being a public park kid shaped his scrappy, combative style. His father, also Jimmy, worked as a toll-booth manager on a bridge over the Mississippi. At sixteen, to find tougher competition, he moved with his mother to Southern California to train with Pancho Segura and Pancho Gonzales. He won the NCAA title at UCLA and turned professional in 1972. He went on to win eight Grand Slam singles titles and a record 109 tournament titles, and his fierce, crowd-pleasing style made him a legend. In his memoir, The Outsider, he credited his mother and grandmother with everything.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today