by John McEnroe
It was good of the Hall of Fame committee to ask me to induct her. Though as I stepped up, I could see them thinking, “For God’s sake, don’t let him take hold of the mic.” At my own induction, five years earlier, I’d been asked to speak for four or five minutes and was still going forty-five minutes later. But I kept my introduction for Dodo short and sweet. I told those present how she’d won 250 gold balls—they’re awarded by the USTA to winners of national events, and she was still winning them well into her eighties, eventually winning a total of 391 by the time she finally stopped competing in 2012, aged ninety-five! I also spoke of her contribution to the game and then I walked her to the court where we hit a few balls back and forth. For once, I wasn’t the oldest player on the court! Dodo died in 2014, aged ninety-eight. Her attitude and style made her an inspirational figure in tennis. And she’s one of the reasons that I think the Hall of Fame is a good thing in sports, and that tennis is truly a game for your whole life.
One of the challenges of getting older as an athlete is that while it’s nice to still get recognition for what you achieved in the past, you don’t want your life to become one long lap of honor. Unlike most former athletes who don’t have the option of continuing to play and are often too crippled by injury to do it, I was incredibly lucky: I continued to turn out for legends tournaments and exhibitions throughout the year and people were still willing to watch an old fart like me hit the odd decent volley or lefty serve. I still love competition, the energy I get from it, and yes, I’ll be honest, the applause. Because let me tell you, there’s no better way to get my juices flowing (and give me the incentive to keep training) than seeing if I can still cut it with guys who are ten, twenty years younger than me.
Every Grand Slam has a seniors doubles event for the allegedly golden oldies that runs alongside the main tournament. The French event, called the Trophée des Légendes, is the best of them. There’s usually a maximum of three matches to play—two in the round-robin group, then the final if you’re the top team from your group—with matches on the big show courts, usually the Suzanne Lenglen, their second biggest stadium, which seats 10,000.
The fact that the stands are even close to being full is a testament to the big personality of the organizer, Mansour Bahrami—the Iranian walking mustache, and a legend in his own right—who always puts on a good show. Not only is his facial hair right up there with Ion Tiriac’s as one of the all-time great tennis mustaches, but there aren’t many other crowd-pleasing trick-shot merchants who can claim to have fled to France in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution with their life savings in their pockets.
The French really know their tennis, partly because so many of them play, and the sport doesn’t have the elitist image that it does in America and Britain, which is why the all-round vibe at Roland-Garros is so great. Mansour’s event has a real energy about it, and I have a pretty good record in that tournament, so while Rafa was busy sweating and grunting his way to his first title on Court Philippe Chatrier, I was teaming up with my good friend Yannick Noah to seal our first seniors title together. I’ve won it many times over the years with different partners, but I know that no one cares about that except me.
For other seniors events that take place the rest of the year, it’s a whole different ball game because of the way they’re organized and financed. Which is to say, they’re set up on a purely commercial basis. The first seniors tour was started back in 1993 by Jimmy Connors. In the mid 1990s, after I’d stopped playing the main tour, I played a few seniors events but without too much commitment on my part, largely because of the stage I was at in my life. I was newly married to Patty, we were creating a new family together. But once I started taking the whole seniors thing seriously in the late 1990s—after Patty told me, “If you’re going to do it, do it right,” because she could see how bad I felt getting whipped when I hadn’t practiced enough—I started beating Jimmy and winning more tournaments than him, which he hated.
Jimmy and I have a lot of history, dating back to him beating me in that Wimbledon semi-final in 1977, and our relationship has always been… complicated, although we get along way better nowadays than we used to. When I demolished him 6–1, 6–0 at Royal Albert Hall in 2001, during one of those times when we weren’t exactly on each other’s Christmas card lists, Jimmy stopped playing seniors shortly after, and even I felt bad about it. Not least because Jimmy and I had been the tour’s two biggest draws, and without him there to provide me with stiff competition, the tour started to struggle. That’s not to take away from the other guys, but the fact was that Jimmy brought a unique brand of competitiveness and showmanship that the crowd loved, and which (much as I didn’t realize it at the time) I loved too. Connors had always been a fantastic opponent for me. I got off on his intensity—no one I played against ever tried harder. And his antics, wow—they even topped mine; the way he’d grab his balls, tell everyone to go fuck themselves, then turn around later and put his arm around them. It was amazing.
Ever the hustler, Jimmy sold the tour to IMG, who ended up going into joint partnership with the ATP (which organizes the regular men’s circuit) to organize a “Champions Tour” seniors circuit of tournaments around the world. The year-ending event is at Royal Albert Hall. But without Jimmy around for me to bounce off, crowds were starting to decline in the early years of the new decade, until four-time Grand Slam singles winner Jim Courier set up a rival tour as part of his InsideOut Sports & Entertainment company—and breathed new life into the whole seniors circuit.
Jim’s franchise had more American players on it, with guys like Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang and Andy Roddick, whereas the ATP Champions Tour had a much more international feel, with Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Cash amongst the big-name draws in 2005. We weren’t—and still aren’t—selling millions of tickets but, depending on the market, our wheelhouse would be 2,500–5,000 people, which isn’t bad in my book.
I can’t deny that there is a hit-and-giggle element sometimes. The doubles scene is generally a contrast to the singles matches because it’s usually—though not always—less serious. Old foes getting back together to put on a show, we know we’re there to compete but also to entertain.
At the pre-Australian Open exhibition event in Adelaide a few years later, I found myself taking part in some extreme episodes of craziness. Each time, Frenchman Michaël Llodra was heavily involved. You could say he was to blame for pretty much the worst parts of it, and I’ve heard he likes to have a bit of fun in the locker room, but others, such as Mansour Bahrami (class clown leader), Henri Leconte (deputy class clown), and Pat Cash (always a willing accomplice), were all trying to outdo each other.
Michaël, or Mika, as the French call him, only retired in 2014, so back then he was still a fully-fit member of the regular tour (and one of the smartest and best lefty doubles players in the world, as it happens). In one of our matches, he, Leconte and Cash ganged up on me and started going through my tennis bag at the side of the court, trying to find something to embarrass me with. There’s always a bunch of stuff in there—most of which doesn’t smell too good—so the next thing I knew, they were pulling out anything and everything, displaying it to the crowds and trying it on for size. That included Cash putting my tight-fitting red underpants on top of his shorts (in case you’re wondering, he somehow managed not to look obscene), while Llodra found my swimming goggles and put them on (teamed up with his baseball cap, he looked like a World War I flying ace), and Leconte found an elasticated back support which he put on his head and which made him look like a Smurf (or an idiot, depending on your point of view). It all got pretty chaotic because the guys playing on the adjacent court, including Mansour Bahrami, didn’t need too much of an excuse to stop playing and join in the fun. Good thing I’ve gotten better at not taking myself too seriously.
Things could have turned out even more humiliating in the other doubles match I played against Llodra and Leconte. I was partnering with
Ryan Harrison, a young American player who was only nineteen at the time and who was clearly not prepared for what the match turned into. At one stage, Leconte, for reasons best known to himself, but probably because he was about to lose, took his shorts off. The crowd loved it. As I said, class clown. Before long, and I swear to God I don’t know why, except that we were all having fun and the crowd seemed to be enjoying what they were seeing, I’d taken my shirt off, in a sort of “anyone can play that game” kind of way. Who said I can’t enjoy a good laugh? It did cross my mind that it might not be such a hot idea but, you know what, I figured I wasn’t too embarrassed at what I’d be revealing, so off went the shirt. Llodra meanwhile had matched Leconte and taken his shorts off too. Next to come off were all our shoes and socks. Ryan Harrison, probably wisely, decided not to compete with us and remained fully clothed. Perhaps he didn’t want to humiliate us by reminding us what a teenage athlete’s body looked like.
Leconte was—quelle surprise—loving all the attention and milking things as much as he could. As usual. What I hadn’t expected was that Llodra would decide to go one step further and take his shirt off. Suddenly he was down to just his tight underpants. At that point I became a little concerned because he looked like he was planning to keep going. When you’re on court in front of a few thousand people, that could be a lot trickier to pull off, as it were. For once, Leconte, who doesn’t usually have much of an edit button, realized what his own limits were: he figured that, as much as Llodra looked good enough in his underwear to carry off his stunt, it would be a smart move for everyone’s sake if he, Henri, kept his shirt on.
With guys like this, doubles becomes a sort of circus, but once in a while it’s liberating for me to get involved, and believe it or not, I’m happy to take part. Though call me a chicken, but I’d prefer not to play strip-tennis every time.
For me, if the seniors circuit keeps us guys out there, competing, kidding ourselves we’ve still got what it takes to serve up some good tennis while providing entertainment for people who are still willing to pay to see us, then it’s a good thing. I always say I want to be the Rolling Stones of the seniors tour. Like the Stones, we’re on a nostalgia trip. And even if we sometimes feel like those caged rats on a treadmill, running and not getting anywhere, that’s still a lot better than nothing, because after all, what’s the alternative?
Actually, I know what the alternative is—it’s being forced to retire for real, like my father had to at sixty-five—and that rarely works out well. At first, my dad didn’t sit around. He tried to think of things to do. But some of them were so crazy that we had to laugh. Like the time he called me up and said, “John, I think I could do some commentating. What do you reckon?” “What? Are you out of your mind?” I replied, almost lost for words. I mean, don’t get me wrong, my dad was highly articulate and smart, but I don’t think too many TV producers would have had him down as their first choice in a commentary booth.
My dad’s Irish roots always came through in his love of singing (as well as an accompanying beer or two), and he used to love belting out his favorite songs at the top of his powerful voice. Can you spot the family resemblance as far as musical enthusiasm was concerned? This gave rise to another of his post-retirement ideas. One day, he announced to me that he wanted to be a singer, and could I have a word with Tony Bennett, since I happened to know him. He thought he could open for him next time he was appearing at Radio City Music Hall or wherever. Apparently there was some bar downtown that had open-mic nights and could I ask Tony to come down and hear him sing, with a view to hiring him?
Not long after, I ran into Tony at the US Open. Now Tony is the nicest guy in the world, so when he said, “John, I saw your father, and he wants me to go hear him sing,” he didn’t seem to be dismissing the idea out of hand. I set him straight right there and then. “Do me a favor, Tony. Say you’re busy—like, forever. OK?” I think he got the message.
But nothing topped the time my dad heard that Patty and I had become friends with the comedian Don Rickles and his wife Barbara, and Patty had opened for Don at one of his casino shows in Las Vegas. My dad said, “Hey, I could open for him too.” Even for Dad, that was a bridge too far.
Both my parents turned seventy in 2005, and I was starting to be aware that their later years weren’t panning out as might have been hoped. I’d try to see them on all the significant dates because when I’d been on the tour I was rarely around for birthdays, Thanksgiving, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day—all the dates that are important when you’re a family. I was still away often, but if I wasn’t, we’d try to make the effort to go out, with as many of my kids as were around, usually to one of my parents’ favorite restaurants, or we’d have lunch or dinner with one or both of my brothers and their families.
To some extent, I struggled with the whole issue of how to deal with my parents’ later years. I was conscious I didn’t always cope with it very well, but at least when Patty told me I “lack the empathy gene” I usually managed to resist the temptation to point to my mom and dad and ask her, “Well, whose fault is that?”
9
“It’s not bad to be runner-up”
Larry David
On February 16, 2006, I turned forty-seven. OK, I wasn’t quite geriatric yet, but I was still watching the big Five-O getting ever closer on the horizon. Three days later, I won a regular tour ATP doubles title in San Jose, California, beating a couple of guys who were about twenty years younger than I was. My own partner, the Swede Jonas Björkman, who had once been world number four, was a mere thirteen years younger than me, and with a combined age of eighty-one we were pretty old to be getting involved in a full-blown ATP tournament, my first since 1994 (even if it was doubles). I’ll be honest and admit that I was a little bit concerned I’d be a liability for Jonas, but somehow I managed to raise my level so that I wasn’t too far off his. At least, that’s what he told me.
It was my first doubles title since 1992, when I’d won indoors in Paris with my brother, so it felt weird to be winning again on the main tour. It felt even weirder when someone told me that I had now won a doubles title in four different decades. How to make someone feel their age. “I’m going to enjoy this and then take a few months off—minimum,” I announced to the media afterward. “Then I will go back to the seniors tour where I belong, and tell them I can still cut it with the younger guys.”
Did I believe that? Was that what I wanted, to still play occasional doubles on the main tour? What was I trying to prove—and to who? The answers to those questions were not straightforward. Yes, I had proved to myself, and I hope to others, what I had long suspected, which was that I could still play doubles at tour level if I chose to do so. But what did that mean? Did I now want to keep doing that? Short answer: no.
It was still pretty cool to be the oldest guy ever to win an ATP tournament, though Martina Navratilova had pushed back the boundaries of what was possible for forty-somethings by winning her first-round singles match at Wimbledon in 2004 at the age of forty-seven, the oldest player in the modern era ever to do so. Later, in 2006, she then went on to win the mixed doubles at the US Open with Bob Bryan, one month short of her fiftieth birthday. Clearly, I wasn’t the only player to think I could still keep up with the youngsters. Looking back, it’s too bad Martina and I never played mixed doubles together in our prime, because boy we would’ve kicked some major ass.
Back in San Jose, the organizers thought they were doing a nice thing by presenting me with an enormous cake on my birthday, not that I wanted reminding of my increasing age. My dad had been excited to come along to the tournament now that he had time on his hands—after all, he hadn’t been the parent of one of the competitors for many years—and although I can’t say I shared his excitement at the idea of him being there, for old times’ sake I took him along. Problem was, I soon found myself looking after him in a way which I’d never had to when I’d been playing the main tour.
Once upon a time, he or Mom would have bee
n the ones to make sure I was OK at a tournament, checking that everything was organized, that I was happy with the arrangements. After all, my dad was my agent for the first ten years of my career. But times had moved on and now the shoe was firmly on the other foot.
On top of the initial depressing realization that he was no longer the autonomous, independent dad who used to cheer me on when I was younger, selfishly there were moments that week when I was asking myself, “Why did I bring him here?” because it was taking away from what should have been an enjoyable experience. It sounds harsh, but I know I’m not the only person who is shocked to discover their parent’s presence somewhere is suddenly more of a hindrance than a help, and you feel like the father/son roles have reversed. It was a sad truth, but that’s what had happened.
Fortunately, after a few days of feeling down, I was able to overcome all those negative feelings and win the tournament, so on balance, it did turn into a very positive experience. But it came with some mixed emotions. Here I was, trying to hold back the years on court, while off it I was being faced with an unequivocal example of advancing time. Who was I kidding?
One of the advantages of being part of the sandwich generation—caring for your parents and bringing up kids at the same time—is that having your own family gives you a new perspective on how much your mom and dad did for you. The scathing response I got from my kids when I tried to start a tradition of discussing a specific topic at family mealtimes certainly led me to view the tribulations of the older generation in a more sympathetic light, especially when they called me “Larry the Lecturer.”