Jimmy Connors will join the Tennis Channel in the booth this summer for the U.S. Open.  No word if Connors will get free Shamwow products, a leading Tennis Channel advertiser, or have to play doubles with Vince, the smarmy salesman of the miracle towels.  Connors, however, will be a big improvement over Justin Gimelstob, a player with a below-mediocre career who has a big smile but limited vocabularly.  In a recent interview with Andy Roddick, he referred to Australia’s “repressive” heat, when the word he was looking for was oppressive. In fact, I’d rather hear Vince from Shamwow talk about tennis than Gimelstob.

My favorite Gimelstob memory is his match against Pete Samprasin the second round of the U.S. Open in 2000. While on the way to being routed 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 in the enormous Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gimmelstob whose career ATP single match record was 107 wins and 172 losses, complained to the umpire about noise being made by the blimp hovering overhead, as though the distraction was keeping him from winning the match. For some reason, the blimp didn’t seem to bother Sampras, and neither did Gimelstob’s game.

Of course, there’s much more I could write about Connors and Gimelstob – Gimelstob’s radio rant against Anna Kournikova, and Connor’s arrest at a college basketball game – but those are both well-documented elsewhere.

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