John McEnroe, Bud Collins, Tennis Magazine’s Peter Bodo and Sports Illustrated’s L. Jon Wertheim all have rated Sunday’s final as the greatest match of all time, or at least of the Open era. (Sports Illustrated even put a match photo as the lead story on this week’s cover — when was the last time the magazine featured men’s tennis?) I don’t know if I can disagree, but I’m still sentimentally partial to the Borg-McEnroe final in 1980 where the fourth set tiebreaker went 18-16 and in spite of losing that tiebreaker and seven match points, Borg gathered himself and came back to win the fifth set 8-6 to take his fifth Wimbledon in a row. I remember that match well because I was 13 at the time and on that same day my dad and I went to Atlanta and he bought a ball machine I hoped would improve my backhand. We watched the Borg-McEnroe fourth set tiebreaker on a bank of televisions in the Ellman’s department store. Even with the ball machine, I still never resolved my weak backhand. (You can find much of the 1980 match in Youtube, and full coverage of that match is available on DVD through Netflix or Amazon.) Of course, I’ll always remember this year’s final because I saw the fourth set and the end of the fifth while in between going out and playing two sets with my friend Marcelo Pascale until rain brought us inside to watch it on the TV at the Green Valley Tennis Club in Haddon Township, N.J. I beat Marcelo, a transplanted Argentine, in two sets on clay, and anytime you beat an Argentine on clay you have done something special (I should probably reveal he is recovering from knee surgery). The tennis on the TV looked far better than we did. I’m still trying to decide if Wimbledon final of 1980 or 2008 is the best match ever. Fortunately, I have the 2008 match on tape and will watch again.