Meeting John McEnroe

By Mike McIntyre

It’s not every day that you get to meet someone you grew up idolizing, in fact for many it is an event that can only be dreamed about. For me, John McEnroe was as fascinating a sports personality as there ever was. When I found out this past spring that he would be playing a tennis exhibition against Jim Courier in nearby Hamilton, Ontario, I realized this was as good a chance as I would ever have to meet this tennis legend.

My first memories of John McEnroe are in fact some of the earliest ones I still retain from my childhood. They consist of sitting on the living-room couch with my father watching McEnroe in the late 1980s during Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. I don’t remember specific opponents or outcomes, merely the infectious and aggressive personality that was Johnny Mac. While he was past winning Grand Slams at this stage of his career, his bad-boy image on the court was still in full effect and it mesmerized me as a child. It was rare for me to see any adult I knew acting in such a manner and his behavior seemed to resonate with the crowd despite its questionable nature.

Soon enough I was doing my best McEnroe imitation on the tennis court, which failed to amuse my father very much at all. There were many a Sunday afternoon where my time on the public tennis courts ended prematurely as my racquet took a beating yet somehow managed to stay in one piece. I’m not attributing my childish immaturity to what I saw on television, but inside I think I partially felt I was within my rights to behave in such a way given what John McEnroe got away with on the ATP Tour.

Fast forward twenty years or so and McEnroe is still taking his ambivalent, me-against-the-world act on the road. At times it is hard to tell if he’s merely giving the crowd what they so clearly expect from him or if he just can’t behave in any other way once he gets into a competitive battle on court.

As I waited in the media room at Copps Coliseum in early May, I wondered which John McEnroe I would be interviewing on this day. Would it be the amicable announcer that we all love listening to on television or would it be the gruff, rough-around-the-edges McEnroe that appears on court.

It turned out to be somewhat of a mixture between the two personalities. When he walked into the room I was taken aback by how old and even dishevelled he appeared. It looked to me like McEnroe just rolled out of bed and could have probably used a shower and a coffee before talking tennis. My first couple of questions seemed to wake him from his slumber and it took a few minutes for his answers to come into focus. Once they did however, I was quite pleased with our conversation and the resulting Q&A. While I struggled to get a smile out of him, Johnny Mac looked me straight in the eye and answered each question I threw his way.

Pro Tennis Fan: So first off John, can you talk about what it’s like to be back in Canada and some of your memories north of the border from playing here during your career.

John McEnroe: Oh. It hasn’t been that long. I played a couple of times at Casino Rama and we played an exhibition at the Rogers Cup. But obviously the main memories were playing the Canadian Open. So I had a lot of good moments and it was usually a good stepping stone to playing well at the U.S. Open, so we go way back.

PTF: What are your thoughts on the lack of a Canadian presence on both the ATP and WTA Tours right now and why it always seems so tough for Canadians to crack into the top hundred on both sides.

McEnroe: I don’t really have a good answer other than obviously you don’t have the year round play that you would at some places, let’s say in the States or other places in the world. But I came from New York which is a similar type of climate as here or Toronto. I think you need to feed off other players so perhaps the size of Canada (makes it difficult) and maybe the need to have better competition. I would think there should be no reason, I’m sure there are some good facilities in this area or in Toronto that there’s no reason why there couldn’t be. It is somewhat surprising.

PTF: There’s too many hockey players perhaps?

McEnroe: Yeah that’s it. Maybe they switch to hockey too often.

PTF: What if we played on ice?

McEnroe: If you played on ice you’d have a top ten player.

PTF: Are you worried at all in the States that they’re headed towards a similar sort of situation with the Williams sisters getting older, and Roddick and the Bryan Brothers approaching their thirties that there might not be someone there - that you don’t have those players there to fill that void in the next few years?

McEnroe: Yeah. I think people are worried generally. We had a lot of success in the past and it seems that the assembly line that you used to take for granted you realize that you don’t just snap your fingers. A lot of other countries have put more resources into it and you need to keep promoting the game in a way such that little kids would want to play it and you get better athletes in it. We haven’t done that great a job for a while with that, but we should have taken better advantage of the Williams sisters success in my opinion. That’s an extremely unusually story and it doesn’t seem like we have a lot to show for it.

PTF: If you were commissioner of the sport of tennis what kind of changes might John McEnroe make to improve the marketability of the game?

McEnroe: There’s a lot of things but marketing is the key thing. If you look at hockey, if you look at basketball, a lot of the top sports have a lot of foreign players playing more so than there was in the past. With baseball, it’s not as if the game has fallen apart, you could make the argument that it’s bigger than ever. So if your top players don’t happen to be American it doesn’t mean that it should be hopeless. People would want to come and see it. So there’s a whole lot of things that I would try to do but I would certainly make more of an effort to try to in the United States - it’s a key market. So there’s no doubt that I would try to somehow try to get better athletes playing and to make the game more available.

PTF: How much longer do you see yourself playing these types of seniors events that you’re doing today?

McEnroe: Well there’s a difference. This is a different situation. You go out there more because I feel like I’m fit enough to do it on a reasonable level and it’s nice to compete sometimes. But this is hardly like you’re out there trying to be the best player in the world at your sport still and winning majors. This is more icing on the cake than anything else. I feel like I’m in as good a shape as I’ve been in ten years so I’m able to do this. This is sort of like playing half a match. So if you look at it that way it’s far easier to pull off. I can do this occasionally, so if there’s a place where there’s a history or conversely hasn’t been any tennis, either way you can make an argument where it’d be nice to come and try to do it once in a while.

PTF: Are we going to expect any antics from you on the court tonight, any of the old McEnroe coming out?

McEnroe: You know they pay me extra for that.

PTF: So much per racquet smashed?

McEnroe: Exactly.

PTF: Do you have any regrets about any of the bad boy image you had back in the 1980s?

McEnroe: I think everybody has regrets about something, but all in all it’s worked out pretty well.

PTF: One last question. You made a doubles appearance a couple of years ago with Bjorkman in San Jose which was pretty successful. Do you ever think about coming back out for an ATP tournament like that?

McEnroe: Not much, because if I wanted to do that I would want to do it at the majors and I’m pretty busy doing the commentary so it doesn’t work well. But I still think I could do the doubles. This is far more difficult playing singles.

PTF: Well good luck tonight.

McEnroe: Thank you, take care.