Tennis:Thirty years ago a brash young man from New York lit up the staid world of Wimbledon. Today John McEnroe is part of the game's establishment but is still as spiky as ever, writes KEVIN MITCHELL
IT IS 30 years since John McEnroe lit up Wimbledon and, subsequently, all of sport with the eloquent scream of a fiery young genius. That single, barking plea – “You cannot be serious!” – was more than just an affront to authority. It was an explosion of brattish angst, a battle cry of chic rebellion in the most incongruous of surroundings.
McEnroe, the independent son of an Irish-American New Yorker who put himself through night school to become a successful lawyer, was 22, with a tennis racket in one hand and a guitar in the other (at 52, he still carries both).
The launch of MTV in that summer of 1981 invigorated New Wave, America’s repackaged answer to punk. With his Gotham City attitude and naff headband ruling unkempt curls, McEnroe was one of their unlikely champions.
As his words rolled over the serene lawns of south-west London that weird afternoon, aimed indiscriminately at the umpire, Ted James, the tournament referee, Fred Hoyles, and anyone else who got in his way, McEnroe’s first-round match against fellow American Tom Gullikson descended into tennis anarchy.
He recovered his composure, though, and went on to beat Bjorn Borg in the final, the start of a quite golden run.
What is sometimes forgotten is that McEnroe was almost thrown out of Wimbledon for calling Ted James “the pits of the world”, an insult too far for some members of the committee. Had they gone through with their threat, had McEnroe packed his bags and flounced home to New York, perhaps never to return (as he contemplated), tennis today would be a very different landscape.
He was fined €1,050, a small price to pay for the fashioning of an image so enduring that he is annually invited back to the place that helped make him famous.
Thirty years after his infamous rant, McEnroe, middle-aged but still spiky, is a content member of the establishment against which he railed so loudly.
This week, as he prepared for another stint in the BBC commentary box at Wimbledon, he recalled the start of that journey.
“At the time it didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary,” McEnroe said. “There was already a lot of pressure I’d put on myself because I felt like I should perhaps have won it already. (Borg beat him in five classic sets in the final the year before).
“(Because) it was in the first round, it felt like there was so much pent-up nerves and expectation that I put on myself. It was me against everyone there at the time, whether it was the press or the umpires.”
He did not see it as gamesmanship, either, but he will say that Andy Murray does himself no favours when he lets his mood swings show on court.
“You look at the yelling,” McEnroe said, “and it doesn’t take someone like Einstein or Sigmund Freud to realise it isn’t helping him. I know that when you get that pent up and crazed, I can tell you from experience, it can be distracting at times. It cost me the match in the French Open when I lost to (Ivan) Lendl (in the 1984 final, having led by two sets).
“I’ve never seen him lose it that bad, except at his coaches and the people he’s yelling at in his box. That’s where he goes off. I don’t see it much with umpires. I see it all the time where he just spews nervous energy and you hope that the people he works with or whoever he’s directing that at either have thick skin or are well paid – or both.
“In an ideal world, it would be a good idea if he didn’t do it. It seems like it’s hurt him – in my mind, but it’s easy for me to be a backseat driver. I don’t know if he’s directing it at his mum, but a couple of times my dad would be there and he’d be sort of calm.
“I would get so worked up and I’d be yelling at him: ‘I’m out here laying it on the line and you’re sitting there . . .’ So I’d be all upset at him and start yelling at him and in some cases, dare I say it, cursing at him. I think there would have been a better way of getting myself motivated. There are other ways to fire yourself up without having to be on the edge of disaster.”
He brilliantly describes the pressure on court, too. “It became part of me. The anger is a defensive mechanism. If you’re out there and things are going badly, are you going to cry or break down? Then someone will see you and think: ‘Oh my God, look at this poor guy.‘ “And guys aren’t supposed to cry. It’s bad enough for a girl. If you felt that bad, instead of showing a side that you really didn’t want to see, you showed a side that perhaps you can accept more of.
“I was always taught growing up that you needed to be intense. You could never lose your focus. But if I did lose it, the first thing that came to my mind was (to say) something that was funny.
“In fact, you had to pretend. You had to shout. But you could never cry. That might be honest, but it would be giving the game away. Quite literally, you could not be serious.
“It didn’t change anything initially and I suppose if anything at that time I remember thinking: ‘If I win this I don’t want to come back. This is it. I’ll win it, then I’m out of here.‘ The moment I did end up winning the tournament I remember thinking within a few seconds: ‘I want to come back and try to win this again.‘”
So he is drawn back every year, the greying rebel with the sharp mind and tongue, to entertain and educate the very people who once thought they did not want him.
The Wimbledon McEnroe returns to annually is a very different place from the one he upset in 1981. It is not quite hip, but it is modern, accommodating, much less stiff.
When an angry young McEnroe shouted at Wimbledon, he was met with a scowl.
The old lady of tennis is 125 years old this year and there is a smile on her face now, and for that we have a special individual to thank.
Guardian Service
