The McEnroe Forehand...

[don_budge]

?

[stotty]

I think Mac's forehand was great for that era, but as the great man confessed in one of his recent BBC commentaries, compared to today's forehands his was far less effective in the mid court. And as he also put it, these days games are often won and lost in the mid court.

I blame the rackets myself We won't see the likes of Mac and Mecir again

[chuck62]

Mac's still got it

Interesting to see about a year ago I think a 50 plus Mac beating Philapousis (who hits as hard as anyone in the modern game) on a hard court in Dallas. Maybe that forehand isn't so outdated after all.

[johnyandell]

Great great shoulder turn. The ability to hit on the rise and take time awy--phenomenal accuracy. Yeah saw that Flipper match!

[worldsbestcoach]

McEnroe passes the test of time

I was lucky enough to see John McEnroe play in person many times. I agree with Don Budge that John got distracted after a while, and did not concentrate on his tennis the way he should. If you read John's autobiography You Cannot Be Serious, it is apparent that John, after dominating tennis for some years, did not continue to apply himself 100% to playing the best he could. Now, as a senior, John applies himself better than anyone else does!

I saw Brad Gilbert play & win a minor tournament, the week before Gilbert upset McEnroe at the year-end Masters at Madison Square Garden. Gilbert was playing perhaps the best in his career, phenomenally well. Gilbert was actually blasting the ball very hard. But instead of respecting Gilbert as an opponent, McEnroe had come to believe his press clippings that he was so talented. Therefore, McEnroe was shocked by Gilbert, and quit the sport for awhile. McEnroe was distracted by drugs, parties, girls, art, and other interests.

At his peak, I saw McEnroe outplay Connors & other great baseliners on the French Open clay. Mac would stand in and take the ball so early that he would dominate the rallies. In the 1984 French final against Lendl, McEnroe did the same thing for at least 2 sets. However, John let himself get distracted by photographers, and his subsequent tantrums sapped his energy, so that Lendl was allowed to come back for the victory. Still, I remember Lendl saying that that final against John was so exhausting that Lendl did not fully recover from that match for many months. That is how much John could jerk his opponents around the court by standing inside the baseline.

Also, very few players were as good as John at hitting incredible touch crosscourt angles for passing shots, both forehand & backhand.

The first time I ever saw John was when John was a freshman at Stanford, 3/4 of a year after John had reached the Wimbledon semis as an 18 year old. At that time, John had travelled to Washington, D.C. to compete in an indoor pro tournament in Washington, D.C. I was surprised to see that Mac's groundstokes & volleys were so bad!!! He played one of the Gullickson twins in the first round. John had the best serve that I had ever seen, especially when you consider spin & placement -- & I had already seen a lot of great pro tennis in my life.

John held serve every time, but his volleys were atrocious that day. Only because Gullickson's returns were so weak against John's great serve did John survive with his volleys. John broke Gully in one game in one set, & John won a tiebreak for the other set. John's groundstokes seemed so bad that day that he was seemingly unable to win many groundstroke duels. It is a testament to John's will to become great that John improved his volleys and his groundstrokes so much in the next year or so. I wonder how much the magical Mexican player (& John's coach) Tony Palafox helped John improve his game during those years.

Overall, John is a great human being. But his tantrums can be out of control & ugly. When he does not get his way on a tennis court, he is truly a very spoiled brat, even to this day. But he is smart, charitable, honest, funny -- overall good.

[worldsbestcoach]

thanks for the story

I know that John McEnroe mentioned some early-career bad line calls, in John's autobiography, You Cannot Be Serious. I think he mentioned that Guerry match. However, you provided more details about John's behavior than John did in his book.

I love your story, Don Budge. Perhaps some day I will be lucky enough to sit with you in person and share stories.

[stotty]

My abiding memory of McEnroe was at Wimbledon (can't remember the year but it was around his zenith). It was a second round match. I was sitting near the front just above a bald linesman. After only the third point of the first game in the match Mac got a rough call from the linesman who failed to call a ball which landed an inch out. It was a scintillating shot. but out. During the crowds' applause, Mac turned around, hand on hips, glared at the linesman for about two seconds and said, "We've only played three points and you've f***ed up already, baldy!". Those of us close enough to hear it laughed. There was something unintentionally comical about it.

You had to feel for the linesman. He had to call the that line for another two sets under immense pressure. To his credit he didn't make another error.

It was funny a incident though. Anyone familiar with Mac can picture that scene, "glaring, hand-on-hips.... unable to suffer fools gladly". That was Mac all over. Sometimes his seriousness could be comical. How he has evolved and changed since those days...for the better I might add.

[tennis_chiro]

Zan Guerry

WBC...You remind me of a movie...Total Recall. You really have a great memory and have seen a lot of things over the years and your knack of recalling things is a gift.

I remember the first time that I saw McEnroe...he was 15 or 16 at the time and for the first time he was playing in the qualifying tournament for the US Open in New York someplace. The main tournament was held in Queens. I cannot remember the name of the club but it was a HarTru surface, which the Open was being played on that year, and I think that it was 1975.

My friend and I made the trip to New York in his families Chevy Nova, and upon arriving in New York, seeing it for the first time, I said the line from Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions"..."New York...just like I pictured it, skyscrapers and everything!", I will never forget that. The first thing that happened to us on this eventful trip is we stopped for gasoline at this gas station and at the same time this baby blue Mercedes pulled up. The driver went to the door of the station and tried to enter. Unfortunately, he did not see the sign about the guard dog and he was bitten immediately when he opened the door. Apparently the dog did not recognize it was one of the Jr. Kennedy's.

At any rate, we were staying with one of my buddies college acquaintances named Jeff Wolfman, this Jewish kid from Queens, and he sort of showed us around a bit. Jeff was a funny guy...not so funny as in the "ha ha" sense, but more in an ironic, deadpan way. Funny enough, though, that he did walk onto the stage on amateur night at "To Catch a Rising Star" and did some impromptu standup routine. He was a bit outspoken, Jeff was, and he was going on and on about this tennis prodigy we were going to see the next day at the qualifier...his name was John McEnroe...he said the kid was going to be the next Ille Nastase, in the words of Jeff Wolfman.

In the final round of the qualifier, McEnroe met a player by the name of Zan Guerry from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. They split the first two sets and played evenly to a third set tie break. They were dead even in the deciding set at 6-6 and 4-4 in the tiebreak. This year at the Open, they were playing the 9 point sudden death tiebreak. When you reached 4-4 in this tiebreak, it was double set point and the receiver got to choose which side he would return on...is this correct WBC or anyone (maybe I am confusing this with no add scoring). On the double match point McEnroe hit what he thought was a clean winner and I think Guerry challenged the call to the umpire, who subsequently over ruled and it was decided that they would replay the point. After some spirited discussion, especially on McEnroe's part, they replayed the point and this time Guerry won the point and the match. As you can imagine...all hell broke loose. The three of us were really captivated by the scene this explosive young red head made and sympathized on his behalf.

Out in the parking lot of the club...a young and angry Johnny Boy came by us, kicking at the gravel and still uttering some choice words for the umpire about the match. As he was passing us, I said to him..."you got robbed, kid." He came out of his funk for a split second and gave me a funny look. I am not sure if Mac qualifies as a "great human being", that sort of depends on your definition...but, what a character! He went on to deliver some really "great" lines. "Incompetent fool", "Pits of the world", "Answer the question, you jerk!" are a few of my favorites. These lines rate right up there with "You talking to me" from Robert Deniro's Trevis Bickle in "Taxi Driver". If he had worked a bit harder...he bragged about his Hagon-Daaz diet, no telling what the final script may of been. Be that as it may...he was an absolutely brilliant player!

Zan wasn't just a player from Lookout Mountain. He was almost legendary in the South and one in a long line of players from Lookout Mountain at the time, including Roscoe Tanner who was just a little younger. Zan was a fierce competitor and not about to be taken out by a 16 year old more than 10 years younger than he was, even if he was a little past his prime.

don

[worldsbestcoach]

I love stories

I love the stories about McEnroe, Guerrey, and Nastase so much that I cannot help myself from adding.

McEnroe is often wrong when he disputes a call. In his autobiography, Mc admitted that he feels guilty about yelling at and being too cruel to his own mother. So when John does not get his way, watch out! I have seen John on the seniors tour, many times, on the Tennis Channel. John still truly and fully loses his cool, often. He can act like a little kid who often throws temper tantrums. If John grew up today, & if he did not get such good grades, with parents less wealthy, in a public school in a low-income area, then John probably would have been given some kind of special-education label related to his behavior, and he might have been prodded to take some kind of medication (which of course would have been counterproductive).

McEnroe still plays at a pretty high level. He keeps himself in great shape these days. I was impressed by Borg and McEnroe's play.

I was heartbroken when Nastase, with his purposeful gamesmanship, stole the U.S. Open from Ashe (in 1973?). Later that year, in the year-end (Masters) ATP championships, Nastase continued his gamesmanship against Ashe in a crucial match. Ashe got so fed up with the situation that he walked off the court and quit mid-match. Somehow, when the administrators considered what had happened, Ashe was actually awarded the match. (I think that Nastase won the year-end championships more than any other player ever -- but not that year.)

But Ilie Nastase was so funny, also (as were many players then). One year, Nastase had been upset in the Wimbledon singles on grass, in an early round, by the Texas doubles specialist Sherwood Stewart. A few weeks later, those two players again met in a 1st round match in Washington, D.C., on har-tru, on the hottest day of the summer. On clay, Stewart had no chance, and was far behind.

On one point, Nastase was foot-faulted. Nasty looked down at his shoes, and said, "I told you not to do that, feet!" Then, for the remainder of the match, Nastase served with his heels closest to the baseline, with his back to the net. (In other words, Ilie was more backwards while serving than McEnroe is.)

Then, when Stewart complained about a line call, Nastase's first inclination was to argue against Stewart. But Nastase could see that the day was so humid, and Stewart's energy was so drained, that Nastase offered to replay the point. When Stewart realized that he would have to play an extra point under the broiling sun in a hopeless match, Stewart decided that Nastase could have the point after all.

I have been fortunate to see so many funny things in pro tennis tournaments.