UNIFORMLY AWKWARD
OU cannot be serious!”
John McEnroe’s famous cry at Wimbledon in 1981 gained the American tennis player worldwide notoriety.
It came during his first round match against Tom Gullikson on Court Number One. The number two seed received one public warning during the game and was docked two penalty points as he beat Gullikson 7-6, 7-5, 6-3.
McEnroe’s first warning came after he angrily smashed a racket, stamped on the strings and yanked off the handle. He was then fined two penalty points for calling umpire Edward James “the pits of the world” and
“an incompetent fool”.
The New York tennis player was incensed over a call from the umpire, leading to his angry tirade, “You cannot be serious man, you cannot be serious! That ball was on the line. Chalk flew up. How can you possibly call that out?”
Losing his temper was an occupational hazard for John McEnroe. The year before he’d taken the umpire to task, and told a line judge at the US Open: “You can see as well as these f***ing flowers. And they’re f***ing plastic.”
The hot-blooded tennis star, who turned 60 this year, once explained: “When I walk out on the court, I become a maniac.”
He recreated his Wimbledon outburst in 2010 after it was voted the nation’s number one memorable moment of the tennis tournament.
Jeff Tarango’s name also belongs in Wimbledon folklore after his astonishing 1995 verbal attack on umpire Bruno Rebeuh.
The Californian stormed out of his third round clash with German player Alexander Mronz, aggrieved by several umpiring calls and jeering from the crowd. He told the French-born umpire: “You are the most corrupt official in the game.”
The uproar around Court 13 continued as Tarango’s wife, Benedicte, slapped the umpire in
the face. The controversy led to Tarango being banned from Wimbledon the following year.
Not all SW19 competitors are quite so driven. Murphy Jensen had even his own family concerned that he might have been kidnapped when he failed to appear for a mixed doubles match at Wimbledon in 1995 and was defaulted. The American later contacted his family to say he was safe... and had given the match a miss in favour of a fishing trip.
We don’t know whether his relatives were embarassed by Jensen’s laid back approch to the tournament, but sometimes family members seem more fired-up than the players.
Few tennis parents are quite as intense as Australian tennis player Jelena Dokic’s father, Damir. He was escorted by police from Wimbledon in 2000 brandishing a huge flag of St George. He had asked to borrow a journalist’s mobile phone, smashed it, and then screamed: “The Queen is on the side of democracy – the rest of the country is fascist.” Damir later offered to replace the phone.
Wimbledon has offered equal pay to men and women since
2007, but French player Gilles Simon caused controversy in 2012 when he said the men deserved to earn more and claimed every player in the men’s locker room agreed.
He said: “My point was that I have the feeling men’s tennis is actually more interesting than women’s tennis.”
Maria Sharapova responded by saying: “I’m sure there are more people that watch my matches than his.”
Wimbledon enforces a strict clothing policy, with players asked to ahere to a 10-point guide. Their outfits must be “almost entirely white” – even off-white or cream are not allowed. The guide also states that “common standards of decency” should apply to underwear.
Players have tested the code over the years. American player Gertrude Moran caused a stir at Wimbledon in 1949 when spectators caught a glimpse of her frilly laced knickers on court. The British press promptly nicknamed her Gorgeous Gussie.
She turned up the following year in another eye-catching outfit – a bloomer-type tennis kit specially designed for her for the Wimbledon championships by Pierre Balmain. The French sports outfit was called Temptress and made of silk chiffon.
The length of future Question Of Sport presenter Sue Barker’s hemlines were causing a stir in 1977 and were labelled “risque” for revealing too much skin.
America’s Anne White turned up in a revolutionary white catsuit in 1985 and completed the ensemble with white leg warmers.
Even Swiss tennis star Roger Federer had to toe the line in 2013 when he was forbidden from wearing neon orange-soled Nike trainers and told by Wimbledon officials to change them for his second round match against Sergiy Stakhovsky.
The shoes – a special version of Nike’s Zoom Vapour range – were specially made for the tennis star.
They promptly sold out.