Jan-Michael Gambill: Jimmy Connors

The stars of our sport shared stories about their heroes, both in life and on the court, and how these idols shaped who they are today. For more "My Hero" submissions, click here.

I started tennis 100 percent because of Jimmy Connors. My dad was a football player and a wrestler, and he took up tennis late in life and thought he could be a pro player. The determination and intensity of Connors really attracted him, and made him think more of a football and wrestling mentality rather than what the norm of tennis was back then. He played a lot of tennis, and I would ask him to play. It was all because of Jimmy that tennis came into our lives.

My groundies were a little modeled after Jimmy's, in a way. My strokes were similar, but I copied his footwork. Jimmy had some of the best footwork of all time, and it was his intensity and his footwork that made him such a great champion. I also played with a lot of intensity. I even watched tapes of Jimmy's matches to get myself fired up to play.