by John McEnroe
One of the other reasons I’ve got a sort of connection with them is that I’m still being asked, usually on some talk show or other around the time of the US Open, if I would ever play either of the sisters (nowadays it’s always Serena) in a “battle of the sexes” type match. I swear to God, I’ll turn sixty (which is not far away) and they’ll still be asking me.
The first year it happened was in 2000 when Donald Trump put $1 million on the table for a winner-takes-all match between me and Serena. Or failing that, her twenty-year-old sister, Venus. “I wrote a letter to my dear friend John making him the offer,” claimed Trump. His “dear friend”? News to me. But hey, neither Serena nor Venus took him up on his offer—which was a smart move, if you ask me.
For some reason, never mind all the things that have happened in tennis in the intervening years, the subject of me playing Serena has never gone away. Do I think I could beat her? Don’t tell anybody, but I may still be able to do it. OK, so my daughters no longer think I can. “Are you crazy, Dad?” being one of their more supportive responses. No, I’m not crazy. If you asked ten people, maybe five would say I’d win and five would say I’d lose (with the divide usually falling along gender lines). And as great as Serena is, I still think I may have it in me. It’s safe to say we would both have a lot to lose if we agreed to that match-up. Let’s put it this way: if I were ever to play Serena, I’d have to put aside months of my life to make sure I was as physically and mentally prepared as possible so that I didn’t go out there and embarrass myself.
Serena is now, without a doubt, the greatest female player ever, and she still seems to have an incredible hunger for the game. Although she’s won a lot less, and has a horrible head-to-head record against Serena, Maria Sharapova is the same way. Her competitiveness and intensity on court are her greatest strengths. That’s why when she hired Jimmy Connors to coach her in July of 2013, there was a kind of logic to it—because of their similar mentality. But I was surprised all the same, because in the past Jimmy hadn’t had any involvement with women’s tennis—and had privately dumped on it.
I think that karma caught up with him, because when Maria lost in the first match of their first tournament together—in Cincinnati—she didn’t waste any time in telling Jimmy it was over. I hate to say it, but if they’d stayed together for a year, it could have worked. As it was, God knows what she’d been looking for in him, but she certainly made up her mind pretty fast that she hadn’t found it. Andy Roddick summed the situation up: “Who had the under odds on a match and a half for Connors/Sharapova? If you did, congratulations on your newfound wealth.”
Maria doesn’t care what other players think of her, because she’s the highest-paid female athlete in the world. But when it comes to fist-pumping intensity, she’s right on a par with Nadal. She keeps battling through even though she’s got some weaknesses, like her movement and her serve. It says a lot about her that she’s figured out a way to win so much despite having two potentially big areas of her game where she’s vulnerable. I have to confess though that the one thing I can’t stand is her grunting. I can’t watch her matches—well, sometimes I have to for professional reasons, but if it was up to me, I would never want to watch, or rather listen to her. Which is a shame. Same with Victoria Azarenka, who’s also a great player. When they play, the noise takes away from your appreciation of what they’re doing. Serena used to scream like that but she’s backed off in the last few years, as has Venus, so it can be done. The problem is, the pitch of the grunting is so high it’s incredibly annoying. The guys grunt, but their pitch is lower so I think it’s less of a turn-off for the public (or maybe grunting is just considered more acceptable for guys, but that’s a can of worms I don’t want to open).
Should the authorities try to stop it? Yes, for sure. How would they do that? Easier said than done. People say the grunting would stop at once if the rules said you’re going to lose the point if you grunt beyond a certain decibel, but how are you going to have a meter which can measure that? The question of how much the grunters can help themselves does come up, and you could say that it’s a nervous thing—that when you’re tense, you do it more—which would potentially make it more legitimate. There are some noisy guys out there on the men’s tour too—a couple I’d want to strangle if I’d been playing them. But Djokovic has learned to make less noise, so it can be done, and Roger doesn’t make a sound, which contributes to people’s appreciation of him playing such a beautiful, effortless-seeming game.
The question of gamesmanship arises, because you don’t hear the way the ball is being hit as well if the opponent is covering that sound with a grunt of some sort (hearing definitely comes behind sight and touch in the hierarchy of tennis senses, but it’s still in the top three ahead of taste and smell!). Lord knows, there’s enough of that going on elsewhere on the tennis tour, women’s and men’s alike. As a matter of fact, the whole thing has become a total joke—people calling trainers, taking medical timeouts, taking bathroom breaks, faking injuries, all the usual stuff. Most of it is allowed and any loophole in the rules—or more likely in the interpretation of the rules—is fully taken advantage of. I should know—I made an art of bending the rules in my day.
Bathroom breaks have gotten totally out of hand. Now, when you lose a set, you generally take a bathroom break whether or not you need one, just to interfere with your opponent’s momentum. We weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom at all when I was on the tour. End of story. Only if you were gonna drop dead. Like when Connors beat Lendl at the US Open final in 1982 and he badly needed to go—he had an upset stomach or something. He basically said, “I’m going to the bathroom, default me if you want.” Which of course they didn’t.
With the question of calling for the trainer, I would say that if you break someone down physically to the point where they start cramping, then that’s one of your goals as a player, because who wins should partly be a question of who is fitter. Borg was fitter than me, Lendl too. If I broke down or started losing my edge as a result, then that was too bad for me. If a trainer suddenly comes on court to bail a player out, they’re putting a brake on the momentum of their opponent, who could potentially lose their edge, while the “injured” one is being helped out of a tough situation.
Sometimes it’s legitimate, but I don’t think you should allow someone on to help with a cramp unless the player is in desperate agony. The trouble is, there is no black-and-white solution. The rules aren’t clear, players stretch them anyway, and tournament directors and television networks don’t want players, particularly highly ranked ones, defaulted because of injury. There’s too much money at stake, so the spirit of the game gets totally abused. If the ITF or ATP/WTA don’t like what’s going on, they should stop complaining and change the rules. In the meantime, it’s human nature for players to play all the angles, and from the spectator’s point of view it can even be entertaining. But as an ex-player, it is also totally lame.
It’s the same with the rule about how much time players take between points. People complain that Nadal takes too much time and that umpires never do anything about it. Why is it that in regular ATP tournaments players can take twenty-five seconds between points when they’re playing best of three, and only twenty seconds in Slams when it’s best of five? Change the goddam rule. In fact, put a twenty-five-second shot-clock on court, nice and big, so that it’s clear who is taking too long, then impose penalties for slow play if you’re that worried about it. If it’s that obvious you’re a slow player, and you risk losing a point or worse, you’ll soon speed up, let me tell you. And by the way, Nadal’s slow play is not the reason why so many people lose to him. That’s just an excuse.
Wimbledon of 2013 has gone down in UK tennis history. It was the first time I was back playing on Centre Court since my ill-fated attempt to win mixed doubles with Steffi Graf in 1999. Oh, and I believe a British player also did pretty well in the men’s singles.
Now that my brother Patrick who was 45 had qualifi
ed for the 45 or over Gentlemen’s Senior Invitation Doubles, we had decided to enter the seniors tournament there. The trouble with Wimbledon is that you have to decide in March if you’re going to play that summer and I can’t always commit that early, which was the main reason—along with my busy TV schedule—why I hadn’t played there for eight years.
To be honest, one of the main reasons I’d decided to play there again was because otherwise I couldn’t have gotten access to the locker room—a pretty pathetic reason to play, when you think about it, but that was something I felt I needed to help me do a better job with my commentating. As I’d discovered when I’d warmed up Rafa Nadal in 2008, security was security, and I wasn’t going to get in there any other way.
I still had unfinished business out on the court, too. Even eight years later I was pissed at having lost the last senior doubles match I played there—with my old buddy and doubles partner Peter Fleming. What put me off playing again for all those years afterward wasn’t getting beaten, but how we were beaten—badly—by the talkative Australian pairing McNamara and McNamee. Peter thought I was taking that match too seriously. “Do you realize we are about to get our asses kicked by these guys?” And I replied, “No shit, Sherlock. Maybe we should try a little harder.” The worst part was that I had been asked to introduce the band Velvet Revolver at the Live Aid concert that evening—and it would’ve been exciting to participate in that great show where Pink Floyd got back together. How much more fun would that have been than getting beaten by McNamara and McNamee? Oh well, c’est la vie.
But playing with my brother was very different and we ended up having a great time. The funny thing was, we came up against the two Aussies again—the return of the Mc’s—but I’d already decided: “You’re not going to get away with it this time. I don’t care if you want to be kidding around, I’m gonna pay you back and beat your ass.” The score? 6–1, 6–2.
Our next match, believe it or not, was on Centre Court, late in the day against Jeremy Bates and Anders Jarryd, and although we lost in the third set tie-breaker, it was a good match. I admit it was pretty awesome to walk out and play on Centre Court one more time. It would have been even more awesome if we’d won, but it was still cool to play in front of a great crowd there again. They only put us old farts out there if the regular day’s play has finished early. Luckily, the public seemed to appreciate the effort we put in, and we appreciated their enthusiasm right back. In that situation, whatever the result, we all realize we’ve got to give off a little bit of a “Hey, we’re lucky we’re even out here” type of vibe, instead of looking miserable. Smell the roses—or whatever those purple flowers are around the All England Club. Or at least that’s what I’m telling you in this book.
There were a lot of people who thought 2013 would finally see a British victory at Wimbledon. The fact that Andy Murray had won both the Olympics and the US Open the previous year suggested a real likelihood that he could win this tournament that no British player had won for seventy-seven years (since Fred Perry in 1936). I picked him to do so at the start of the tournament, so I obviously felt that way too.
As it turned out, the draw totally opened up for him. Nadal, Federer and Tsonga were all in his half, and they all got dumped out early. Credit to Andy, he had to hang tough against Verdasco in the quarters—coming back from two sets to love down. But Verdasco can be brittle, and grass was his least favorite surface, so Murray was always the favorite against him. He then came up against the Polish player Jerzy Janowicz—the number 24 seed—in the semis, and although the guy is talented and I thought he could potentially be a top-ten player, he was never that likely to win. So as far as the draw was concerned, destiny seemed to be on Murray’s side, especially as Djokovic had to get through a very long, very tight five-setter in his semi against Juan Martín del Potro. But you can only play who you’re given, and Andy still had to beat Djokovic on the day, which would have been tough any time, never mind in a Wimbledon final.
I’m not sure the British public could have taken a tough five-set final. I was calling the match for ESPN and could sense that the crowd was in a state of high anxiety. Although Murray won the first two sets, no one was taking anything for granted, especially when Djokovic got ahead 4–2 in the third. “Oh no, here we go,” I could feel them thinking. That’s where Murray showed that, this time, he believed he could win. That’s where Ivan Lendl’s influence must have been paying off. He broke back and served for the match at 5–4, though the final twelve-minute game where he let a 40–0 lead slip and had to fight off three break points pushed up everyone’s pulse rates. Even I was getting edgy, because I was rooting for Murray to win. Novak had won Wimbledon before, and I thought it would be good for tennis if Andy came out on top on this particular occasion.
Thank God he finally managed it, and for once Murray did look like he was actually enjoying the moment when he won. When Sue Barker asked him how he felt in her post-match on-court interview, he got a lot of laughs for his dry reply: “It feels slightly different than last year.”
“That last game was torturous,” she went on. “Imagine playing it!” More laughs of relief from the crowd. And when he added, “This one’s especially for Ivan,” the camera panned over to my old rival, leaning against the balustrade up in that players’ box, just above our commentary box, as it happens. It showed a minor miracle: a laughing Ivan Lendl. Murray was seen shaking his head in disbelief. Was it winning that had shocked him, or was it the sight of his coach looking happy?
Would Andy Murray’s 2013 win at Wimbledon and later Davis Cup success in 2015 (which he won virtually single-handed, taking eleven matches out of twelve, just one less than my clean sweep in 1982—one record which can only ever be equaled, not broken) make a long-term difference to tennis in Britain? I guess the answer is: “Only time will tell.” Results won’t come at once, but I hope Murray’s success leads to more kids wanting to take up the sport and then getting hungry enough to want to keep going, even if that’s despite the British LTA rather than because of it. Andy’s achievement in carrying the weight of a whole country’s expectation on his shoulders deserves that kind of legacy.
20
“I’m just waiting on a friend”
Mick Jagger/Keith Richards
Even now, at fifty-eight years old, I love the challenge of playing against guys who are younger than me and seeing if I can still cut it. I’m never really satisfied with my level, but it keeps driving me to try to hold it together for a while longer. In December 2013, I won the “Legends” Over-50s tournament at Royal Albert Hall in London. The Royal Albert Hall event is kind of the Cocoon version of Wimbledon, and that venue is an absolutely spectacular place to play tennis. As I recently told my friend Paul McCartney at a New Year’s Eve party in St. Barts (is this fancy enough for you? How d’you like me now?), I’m proud to have played Royal Albert Hall more times than the Beatles.
My first opponent, Sergi Bruguera, was hurt, apparently, but he almost beat me, because he is considerably younger than I am and is a great athlete who can still run around. In the final I beat my old friend Mats Wilander, who has been waiting a long time for a win over me as a senior. Isn’t that right, Mats? Occasionally, he asks me for some tips on how he could improve his game because he seems deadly serious when he tells me one of his goals is to beat me in a match. That’s when he’ll be able to paraphrase Vitas Gerulaitis who, after he finally beat Jimmy Connors after sixteen straight losses, said, “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis seventeen times in a row.”
On the final day of the Royal Albert Hall tournament, I was being interviewed courtside by Andrew Castle, and I thought it would be cool to get everyone to sing “Happy Birthday.” “It’s for my friend, Keith,” I said. “Keith who?” said Andrew, right on cue. “Well, you might have heard of him, he plays guitar for the Rolling Stones, his name’s Keith Richards.” Blatant name-dropping, I know, but I wanted to do it because he was turning seventy a few days later, and I’d been asked by his manager
Jane Rose to videotape a birthday message, and this seemed a good way to do it. Not bad, eh, Jane?
It’s not like we’re always partying together, but we’ve had a lot of interesting discussions over the years. He’ll send me little notes asking me unusual tennis questions, like: “What would have been the average height of a tennis player when they settled on the size and shape of a court?” Actually, Keith, the short answer is, “I have no idea.” But it’s still a good question. And it’s a sign of the sort of low-key, easy guy Keith is that he can even be bothered to ask it.
Normally, I’d be wary of being so open about being friends with someone as famous as he is (except in the pages of this book, where all bets are off when it comes to keeping things on the down-low). But as public as the gesture was, I guess Keith was touched by it, because I got a note a few days later telling me how much it had meant to him. So I obviously got that one right. In fact, just to show what a great guy he is, he sent me a second note a few days after the first, because he wasn’t sure he’d thanked me and he wanted to be polite—he must have forgotten, which is maybe what happens with the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle he leads. What do I know? At this stage in my life, I tend to forget as much as I remember, if not more, so Keith, I understand perfectly.
Over the years, I’ve met a few of my heroes, and Keith Richards is one of the special ones who don’t fall short of what you want them to be as people. The same goes for Chrissie Hynde; she gave me one of my top-ten rock ’n’ roll moments when she generously laid the memory of that broken string at Madison Square Garden to rest by asking me to record a track on her new album. Obviously more because she’s a friend and she knows how much I love to play my guitar than because I’d be adding any vital missing ingredient to the music.
It worked out well, because she was making the record in Stockholm at exactly the same time that I was there for an ATP Tour of Champions tournament. So on the day I arrived I went straight to the studio to lay the track down. I was playing the same old semi-lame blues part that I usually play, but they were fitting it in with the other guitar parts—it’s not like I was the only guitarist. I didn’t play for long, let me tell you. “Great! Great playing!” said the producer (whose name happened to be Björn—a good omen if ever there was one). “What? Are you sure?” I was a bit surprised Björn and Chrissie seemed so relaxed about my effort. “Yeah, we got it!” What I was thinking was, “Really? I don’t think so, but OK, well, you know best.”