Still brattish after all these years . . .
The common misconception about John Mcenroe is that the former enfant
terrible of Centre Court, once defined as much by his brattish behaviour as by his wonderful athleticism, has become part of the establishment he used to torment.
When the Wimbledon tennis championships start on Monday, the snowy-haired 58yearold will, as usual, be one of the BBC’s most prized pundits.
But nobody should assume that Mcenroe has become a cuddly elder statesman. I have twice interviewed him and once played doubles with him in a proam event — he is as blunt, confrontational and pugnaciously outspoken as ever. And thank heavens for it, because it makes this second volume of his memoirs (after 2002 bestseller Serious) rivetingly, sometimes uncomfortably, candid.
he doesn’t care whose nose he puts out of joint. At Wimbledon, where he was singles champion three times, he is contemptuous of the golden rule that there should be no commentary during an actual point. ‘ holy Moses, I swear it’s more f***ing important than not swearing on air,’ he writes.
he grudgingly accepts some of the ‘socalled Wimbledon traditions’, but hated bowing to the Royal Box. ‘Who were the performers here?’ he asks, rhetorically. ‘ The players, right? So why were they bowing to someone else when they were about to provide the entertainment? Those people in the Royal Box should think about bowing to them.’
Mcenroe loves slaying sacred cows, or at least walloping them with his racket. Though a firm supporter of equal prize money, he has said just this week that the mighty Serena Williams, were she playing on the men’s circuit, would rank no higher than 700th in the world.
In the book, he tells us that, in 2000, none other than Donald Trump put up $1 million for a winnertakesall Battle Of The Sexes match between him and either didn’t of happenthe Williamsbut, sisters.ever theIt provocateur, he thinks that, even at 58, he could beat Serena. As for Trump, when he first ran for the presidency in 2000, Mcenroe’s father, a top New York attorney also called John, wrote him a letter of support. At the 2015 U.S. Open, Mcenroe said ‘ hello’ to Trump, who enveloped him with a hug and told him he had his letter on his office wall — The Donald had confused father with son. ‘I hoped this was fake news,’ Mcenroe writes. ‘I didn’t want everyone who went into Trump’ s office thinking I was his number one fan.’ he is devoted to his second wife, singersongwriter Patty Smyth, and is clearly in awe of the rock ’n’ roll universe. he plays golf with Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. he hangs out with the Rolling Stones. Paul Simon once gave him a guitar. Chrissie hynde, from The Pretenders, is a close friend. But, despite his own pretensions as a rock guitarist, he admits his wife has banned him from singing in their apartment. What emerges from the pages is a man who, for all his bullishness, has an acutely vulnerable side. With searing candour, he writes about the problems he has had with two of his children from his first marriage, to the actress Tatum O’Neal.
It was his insecure streak that, at the start of his playing career, made Mcenroe almost weakkneed with admiration for two other players of that era, Bjorn Borg and Vitas Gerulaitis.
Mcenroe hoped that some of their offcourt lustre might rub off on him.
BUT
other players had the opposite effect, not least his bitter rival Ivan Lendl, now Andy Murray’s coach.
The book begins with his recurring nightmare that he’s still playing the final of the 1984 French Open, which Lendl won from two sets down.
Mcenroe’s fierce antipathy towards Lendl — he describes it as an ‘allergic reaction’ — hasn’t eased much since their heyday.
‘Ah, no way, he hired Lendl. It’s not going to work,’ he thought in 2012, when Murray first turned to the lugubrious Czech. ‘Then I realised, oh my God, it is going to work. That was even worse.’
This stillrestless man has become an art dealer and even a TV game show host in a desperate bid to find an outlet for his competitive juices.
You can bet your life he will keep a close eye on this book’s performance in the sales charts: it deserves to be seeded No 1.