Peter McNamara recalls the day when his knee exploded thereby effectively ending his tennis career at the highest level.

"It was 1983 and I had just won a tournament in Brussels beating (Ivan) Lendl in the final. I was playing in the first round at Rotterdam and absolutely smashed the knee, ripping the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments."

A shattering experience for any player, McNamara was no different. At the time he was one of the finest doubles players in men's tennis, his partnership with fellow Australian Paul McNamee yielding two Wimbledon and an Australian doubles titles. Along with John McEnroe and Peter Fleming the Aussie duo provided a huge draw on the doubles circuit.

Yesterday at Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club, 45-year-old McNamara chatted before taking the court in the Legends Tennis Classic, an event that began on Sunday and ends today. Lean and athletic his movement betrays no signs of the serious knee damage sustained 17 years ago. Perspectives may vary on what the Classic constitutes and that is, initially, what inspired the conversation between player and journalist.

McNamara bristles at any suggestion that this event and those of their ilk around the world are nothing more than exhibitions. A tongue-in-cheek reference to the ageing process and the level of genuinely competitive fare between the eight-man field does not sit easily with a man whose playing days were hallmarked with a ferocious desire to succeed.

"Our priority here is to entertain. We cannot offer the competitive tennis of our youth, but that doesn't mean that we don't want to win. Yeh, there are times in matches when volleys are hit back to players but you have to strike a balance between entertaining and playing the points hard. Who wants to see a player going out and hammering another 6-1 6-1? Is that competitive? Is that what people want?"

McNamara's views on the current men's game are equally forthright and he is worried that doubles, his forte, may be a dying art. "None of the big-name singles players play doubles anymore and that is a big problem for tournament organisers. (Bjorn) Borg was the first to stop playing doubles in my day, the first of the superstars to quit.

"But everyone else played singles and doubles and that helped to ensure that it appealed to the public. The big names, like (John) McEnroe would also play doubles. That meant that if you were at a tournament and there were three matches on a court, you wouldn't get spectators streaming away after the two singles.

"It gave them (spectators) an opportunity to watch two big-name singles players combine to take on a genuine doubles combination like McEnroe and Peter Fleming or myself and Paul (McNamee). Nowadays tennis fans would struggle to name the 10th-ranked player in the world in singles, let alone know the top doubles players. The big names aren't there with the exception of the "Woodies" (Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge). What they have achieved is fantastic. "There are rumours that doubles will soon be resigned to their own circuit and that would be a catastrophe for tennis." McNamara concedes that the colourful characters of his era have yet to be replaced effectively. "The Nastases, Connors and McEnroes of this world certainly impacted on the sport. None of their antics were preconceived.

"Nowadays there is no more than one, Jeff Tarango. But to shoot your mouth off you have to have credibility in terms of the quality of your game." He concedes that tennis now is populated by players who are bigger, stronger, harder hitting and faster and more professional."

On a personal level, he describes playing in the Legends events as a "second life" in tennis terms and will continue to enjoy every minute.