By Cindy Schmerler
Throughout its 143-year history, the U.S. Open has produced memorable matches and compelling storylines.
There was the five-set semifinal victory for Manuel Orantes over Guillermo Vilas in 1975 in a late-night match in which Orantes saved five match points and then returned hours later to beat Jimmy Connors for the title.
There was the final in 1995 between Steffi Graf and Monica Seles that Seles lost in three sets after more than a two-year hiatus following a stabbing attack by a Graf fan. And then there was the Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi quarterfinal in 2001 where Sampras prevailed in four tiebreakers after midnight.
There was also the quarterfinal in 2008 between Venus and Serena Williams when Serena won 7-6 (6), 7-6 (7). And the five-set semifinal in 2011 between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic during which Djokovic rallied from two sets down and then saved two match points in the fifth before winning four straight games for the victory.
But no day in U.S. Open history carries more cachet than Super Saturday on Sept. 8, 1984. That day, fans and television audiences were treated to more than 12 hours of play in which each match stretched to the limits of durability and drama. For a single admission price, spectators got to see 16 sets, 165 games and 979 points.
“Today was probably the best day in the Open ever,” John McEnroe said shortly after he beat Connors in a nearly four-hour, five-set semifinal that didn’t end until after 11 p.m. McEnroe came back the next afternoon to beat Ivan Lendl to claim his fourth and final U.S. Open.
Super Saturday, as it was later called, began at 11:07 a.m. when Stan Smith and John Newcombe met in the semifinals of the men’s 35-and-over tournament.
“It was one of those historic days,” Smith said during an interview in July. “I remember it well. It was very hot during our match, but by the end of the night it was so cold that the concessions sold out of sweatshirts.”
Smith beat Newcombe, but that delayed the start of the first men’s semifinal between Lendl and Pat Cash, which ended three hours and 39 minutes later with Lendl saving a match point and winning 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4).
“From what I remember, he served and had a forehand volley crosscourt that he didn’t punch enough, and I got there and was able to hit a lob winner,” Lendl said of the match point by phone last month. After the match and his obligatory news conference, Lendl headed for his car without ever going back to the locker room to shower and drove to his home in Greenwich, Connecticut. There he had a massage and then returned to the court at his home to hit against a left-handed practice partner in preparation for McEnroe.
As for Cash, who was just 19 at the time, he felt that he had played one of the best matches of his career.
“I had nothing to lose,” Cash said in July. “It was one of those small windows in your life when you come in carefree. And it ended up being one of those amazing days. You just didn’t know it at the time.”
Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert didn’t take the court until after 4 p.m. for their women’s final. That match also went the distance, with Navratilova prevailing 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to capture the second of her four U.S. Open titles.
Navratilova and Evert had no idea when they would begin their match. Evert remembered practicing around 11 a.m. and then sitting around “eyeball to eyeball” with Navratilova playing the game Boggle in a near-empty training room while keeping an eye on the compelling match between Lendl and Cash. Navratilova recalled that there was no pasta left in the players dining room, so she ate bagels that she brought from home. At one point she offered to share with Evert.
“Martina always had food,” Evert said by phone from Aspen, Colorado, this month. “Her racket bag was always full of food, and I was always mooching off her. It was really comical. We were like family in the locker room.”
Navratilova was not happy with the tournament scheduling that forced the women’s final to be sandwiched between two men’s semifinals.
“That was the hardest thing for women, not knowing when we were going to go on,” Navratilova said in July. “To go on after a men’s match is ridiculous because the spread is so big. But that’s how it was back then for TV because they didn’t trust that the women could carry the finals, so they had to have the men play back to back, Saturday to Sunday.”
McEnroe and Connors were forced to endure an endless wait before their match began. Unlike Evert and Navratilova, there was little friendliness in the locker room.
“By that time you’re talking about the semifinals, and it was pretty sparse in the locker room,” McEnroe said in July. “But it’s not as if I was chitchatting with Connors, especially because most of that year we weren’t even talking.”
By the time they entered Louis Armstrong Stadium at 7:28 p.m., few of the more than 20,000 fans had left, which electrified the atmosphere even more. When McEnroe finally beat Connors, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, it was 11:16 p.m.
Super Saturday was created, in large part, by Frank Chirkinian, then a CBS Sports producer. In 1983, the two men’s semifinals — straight-sets victories for Connors over Bill Scanlon and Lendl over Jimmy Arias — lasted barely four hours. The women’s final, in which Navratilova cruised past Evert, 6-1, 6-3, in just one hour and three minutes, meant that CBS was forced to fill about two hours of programming.
Chirkinian was determined that the network not suffer the same fate the next year, so he insisted on adding a match, in this case the contest between Smith and Newcombe. Bob Mansbach, then a producer for CBS’ late-night show, remembers the turmoil well.
“Frank figured that adding a match would guarantee CBS would have live programming from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., but the minute the matches started to run long, he grumbled that he needed Newk” — John Newcombe, one of the CBS commentators in addition to being a player — “on the air and needed the matches to go faster,” Mansbach said in an interview this month. “The big problem was that the network was supposed to air the season premiere of ‘Airwolf’ that night, but that wasn’t going to happen on the Eastern and Central time zones. So, we suddenly had to put together a three-hour highlight show that would satisfy the West Coast. It was bizarre, but it was also a tennis glutton’s fantasy.”
By the next year, the fourth match, the mixed doubles final, was played after the two men’s semifinals and the women’s final. In 2001, the women’s final between Venus and Serena Williams was moved to prime time and required a separate ticket for admission.
Both players and fans still recognized the value of that day 40 years ago.
“It was 12 hours, and every match went down to the wire,” Cash said. “And it was the old Louis Armstrong Stadium where the people were so close to you that you could actually run wide for a shot and then high-five everybody in the box. So the noise and atmosphere were just incredible.”
Evert said they knew it was a very special day. “Our match and then the quality of the men’s semis with the biggest names in tennis playing on the same day.” she said. “The way it turned out really made it an outlier.”
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