"I was impressed because of your ability to wrangle a crowd" - Jimmy Connors' memoir's co-author on the American's temper tantrums on court

Jimmy Connors' family friend and co-author of his autobiography, Casey Defranco, recently spoke about how she was impressed by the American's ability to wrangle the crowd during matches.

Connors is a former World No. 1 player who is widely regarded as an all-time great. He won eight Grand Slams in his career including five US Open titles. To this day, he holds the record for most titles in the Open Era (109).

The American hosts a podcast named "Advantage Connors" with his son Brett. The pair recently invited Casey Defranco, co-author of Connors' book, to their show. Connors' autobiography is titled 'The Outsider' and was published in 2013.

On the podcast, Defranco revealed that she watched a lot of clips of Connors having temper tantrums on the court and that she found them funny. Defranco was also impressed by Connors' ability to wrangle a crowd.

"Well, I watched a lot of footage of you having temper tantrums and things on the court, which I thought was pretty funny, to be perfectly honest. But I was impressed. I was impressed by you. Not because you were such a, you know, good tennis player, but because of your ability to wrangle a crowd," Defranco said (at 26:38).

Defranco went on to say that the American did a lot for tennis. She claimed that tennis was a boring sport before Connors brought life to the game.

"And really, you did so much for tennis. Before it was just sort of people in white skirts boring everybody. And you sort of brought, you didn't sort of, you brought life to th)e game. You really made a change in the game. That really impressed me," Defranco said (at 27:00).

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Jimmy Connors: "My mom took a lot of criticism"

Jimmy Connors pictured at the 2012 US Open

In the same podcast, Jimmy Connors emphasized the role of his mother and grandmother in his career and mentioned that they introduced him to the game.

Connors stated (at 38:03):

"I would've never known about the game if it wasn't for my mom and my grandmother from a little town in Illinois which is pretty extraordinary."

Defranco marveled at the fact that Connors was taught tennis by two women at a time when tennis was predominantly about men. Connors responded that his mother Gloria took a lot of criticism because of this but that did not deter her from coaching him.

"It's interesting that you say that Casey because my mom took a lot of criticism for that. But that never really took away from her feeling about wanting me to be a part of the game and try to get better," he said (at 38:27).

The former World No. 1 also mentioned the lack of financial stability in the sport back then:

"And who knows where that was gonna take anybody. There was no money back then. There was no, you know, what am I gonna do? Go win the US Open and get a handshake, you know?" Connors said at (38:44).