by John McEnroe
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by John McEnroe
Cover design by Mario J. Pulice
Cover photograph copyright © Craig Blankenhorn
Author photograph copyright © Getty Images / Stringer
Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
littlebrown.com
twitter.com/littlebrown
facebook.com/littlebrownandcompany
First ebook edition: June 2017
Published simultaneously in Great Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicholson, June 2017
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-316-32487-8
E3-20170526-JV-PC
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by John McEnroe
Newsletters
TO PATTY—
My soul mate, my partner in crime—we were meant for each other
A man’s gotta do
what a man’s gotta do
when a man’s gotta do
what he’s got to.
Edie Brickell and Steve Martin, Bright Star
PROLOGUE
5:14 a.m., June 8, 2015, Paris
I wake up in a sweat. My pillow’s damp and I don’t know what day it is. Did I miss the match? Am I playing later? For a few seconds I don’t even know where I am. Then it hits me. I already played the match. I already lost it. Jesus, it was back in 1984 and I’m still haunted by it. Even now, more than thirty years later, I’m as hot as I was in the fifth set and I can taste the red clay on my tongue.
It was a match I should have won and it turned into the worst loss of my career. I’d been playing my best tennis ever, I was undefeated that year, and although serve-volleying wasn’t the obvious way of winning the French Open on the slow clay of Roland-Garros, I was playing Ivan Lendl. Ivan had so far lost four Grand Slam finals in a row and I sure as hell wasn’t planning on breaking that run for him by handing him his first title. In fact, I was planning on beating his ass.
At first, that’s exactly what I did. After two sets, I was up 6–3, 6–2, and I was all over him. The crowd was behind me, “Allez, John! Allez.” As far as I was concerned, I was in control, I had this in the bag. But as it got hotter, the crowd started losing focus. Then my friend Ahmad Rashad—a great former wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings—who was there rooting for me, got up to leave. “You got this, Mac! I’ll see ya back at the hotel.” Shit, the last thing I needed was a jinx. It’s an unwritten rule in sports that friends and family don’t leave until the match is over. Not that I’m blaming Ahmad for the loss, but that’s when little doubts started creeping in for the first time. I still thought I was going to win but those negative thoughts began to get to me.
Everything suddenly became a distraction. At the next changeover I couldn’t help but notice the noise from a nearby cameraman’s headphones. Someone was obviously trying to get this guy’s attention. The third set had barely started when, I swear to God, I heard something like, “When the match is over, we’ll focus on John and then stick with him through the trophy ceremony. He’s got this, so make sure he’s in the shot.” In English. In Paris. It was the American TV cameraman listening to the producer’s instructions in his headphones, but they were so loud I could hear them too. Unbelievable! Now I was feeling even more jinxed. So I walked to the guy’s chair, grabbed the headphones off his head, and screamed as loud as I possibly could into his mic: “SHUT UP!” I knew immediately that my frustration wasn’t a good enough reason for me to do this, and while I didn’t care about the cameraman, I did care about the crowd. I needed them. But they sure as hell didn’t need me and my bad attitude. That was the point when they turned on me. They just wanted the match to go on—who could blame them—and what better way than to change corners and root for my opponent? After all, that French crowd was known for being fickle. I tried to block them out. I was still the best tennis player in the world and there was no way I was losing to Lendl.
I failed to break his serve at 2–2 in the third, despite him being 0–40 down. No matter. I still had my mojo. I was still convinced I could win this thing, all I needed to do was stick with my game plan: serve-volley, and break him—as soon as possible. Except he won the set 6–4.
I had to pull it together. I reminded myself I was two sets to one up; better than him. “Don’t panic. Don’t let the heat get to you. Don’t let these people get to you. They know I can beat this guy. I know I can beat this guy.” But it didn’t happen.
In the fourth set, I found myself serving, 4–3, 40–30. I’d broken him and was five points from the title. I really thought I could close it out. But in the heat of the moment, my normally soft hands pushed my first volley a fraction beyond the baseline. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, the set was over. He’d won it 7–5 and we were now two sets all.
In the fifth, the heat became stifling, Lendl’s confidence ignited, and the crowd got behind him. My legs felt more and more like Jell-O and, with my strength draining fast from my body, I lost my grip on the match. I tried and tried, but in the end, I was the one walking to the net with my head down, while Lendl was smiling goofily, his hands up, jumping around as he sealed his first Slam title.
Does it surprise you that I still have that nightmare, all these years later? It wakes me up every year when I’m in Paris, commentating on the French Open—at least once, usually twice. But every time I have this bad dream, it’s a little easier to get over. Maybe I’ve gained some perspective on this dark moment in my career. Maybe time does heal all wounds. But any way you look at it, this was the closest I ever came to winning this clay-court major.
Thankfully I’ve had a couple of small chances for revenge since then (although let me be clear: nothing could EVER EVER EVER make up for what happened that day). The first was in October 2010. And it was in Paris. That morning when I awoke I didn’t have to have the nightmare, because after eighte
en years, I was finally going to be playing Ivan Lendl again. For me, it was a big deal to meet him on court once more. My chance to get one back on him. I’m not kidding. That 1984 Roland-Garros defeat still burned my guts. We’d come up against each other on a number of occasions since then; sometimes I’d won, mostly I’d lost. We’d last played each other on the main tour back in 1992 in Toronto, but by then we were both on the downward slope of our careers, so it hadn’t felt like a proper opportunity for payback. Once I started on the seniors circuit, there was a long period where Ivan was kept off the court because of a clause in an insurance policy that looked like it would stop him from ever playing again. But somehow that got ironed out. So now, in the city where I’d suffered the most painful loss of my career, I finally had the chance to lay that ghost to rest—the one that had been haunting me for twenty-six years.
The setting, Stade de Coubertin, was totally different from the famous red clay of Roland-Garros, even though the two stadiums are only a stone’s throw apart. Coubertin is a big enough indoor sports venue that they played the year-end Masters there in 1971 and 1980. But it’s also a gray, nondescript building on the edge of the giant Paris ring road. On top of that, I remember the air conditioning wasn’t working that evening; packed to full capacity, that place was about as hot as I’ve ever known a stadium to be. It was an oppressive atmosphere, literally and psychologically. The crowd were into it because they know the game pretty well in France and they understood this was a big match for me.
Generally, on the seniors tour, players get along fine, despite whatever differences they may have had in the past, and there’s an element of camaraderie and even light-heartedness in the locker room. Not here. There was an intensity in each of us because we both knew we were going to play as hard as we could. I wasn’t going to lose a point if I could help it—I wanted to make him suffer and show him who was the boss. When Ivan arrived at the stadium, I was on the trainer’s table getting a massage. He entered the room, and without so much as a “hello,” he said in his heavy accent: “So, John, are we going to make each other look good, or are we going to kick each other’s asses?” I paused for a moment and replied, “I’d prefer the latter.”
I never thought that, when at long last I found myself on court against Ivan again, I’d be the fitter of the two of us. The guy had been a machine when he was younger. He was known for his fitness. I was the opposite, known for playing doubles as a way of getting fit. Here we were now, and I was clearly in better shape and moving better than him, although God knows he’d worked hard to come back after a long period out of the game and had lost in the region of forty pounds in the months leading up to the match, which is a lot in anyone’s book. Trouble was, he still had another twenty pounds to go.
When we started, because of the heat, I could hardly breathe. I kept telling myself that if I felt this bad, he must be feeling a whole lot worse. Except that he was serving bigger than I’d expected—or maybe I was returning worse. The fact was, I was tighter than I’d anticipated because I wanted to beat Ivan to a pulp so badly and I’d got myself pretty worked up.
Toward the end of the first set, when the match was still a close one, something weird happened. Ivan Lendl, this guy—this robot—who was known for his total lack of a sense of humor, started tossing out jokes to the crowd. I hadn’t seen that coming, and it threw me to hear Ivan, of all people, asking the crowd why I was taking the match so seriously: “Hey, John, you’re playing too fast. It’s only a game, relax!”
By the time I’d won the first set 6–4, I guess he realized he was going to lose, because he started acting like he didn’t care what happened. His attempts at humor seemed designed to make me look lame and pathetic for wanting to win, but really he was trying to protect himself from humiliation. And it was totally bizarre to have him suddenly try to be this comedian on court.
Then, just as I was smelling victory and moving in for the kill—at 3–2 in the second set—Ivan retired. Without warning. He’d hurt his calf. The public wasn’t too thrilled. I felt cheated, like he wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of a win. Oh, and to add insult to injury, Ivan told me as he defaulted that if he’d been in better shape, he would have beaten me.
It was still incredibly satisfying to have won, because even if he hadn’t bailed on me, I knew I had him. My post-match celebrations made it clear how I felt—I seem to remember doing quite a lot of fist-pumping as I saluted the crowd. Ivan had long retreated to the locker room when I ended the on-court interview by saying that this was a historic moment for me: “I never thought we’d play again… and who would’ve thought I’d be able to say that I was fitter than Ivan Lendl?”
Afterward, Ivan came up to me. “In two months I’ll beat you, you know. I’ll be ready then. Trust me.” Jesus, this guy could be so annoying! But the gauntlet had been thrown. We met on court twice more over the next four months, and both times there was drama.
I’m not sure what it was about Ivan Lendl that brought out an allergic reaction in me. But I do know we were polar opposites; about the only thing we had in common was being members of the human race. I’ve often heard it said that we react badly to people because they remind us of a part of ourselves that we don’t like, or because they possess a character trait that, subconsciously or consciously, we admire and even wish we possessed.
Yes, I admired his dedication and envied his fitness. It’s true that Ivan had a work ethic that no one else had, at least in those days, apart from Guillermo Vilas. But Vilas didn’t do the whole diet and monastic life thing, whereas Ivan was the first player who seemed to have no life at all outside tennis. I give a lot of credit to the guy for sticking at his regime for so long. It paid off in the end, and he certainly changed the game of tennis: today’s players have levels of fitness and commitment that are off the charts. And much as I hate to admit it, that is a good thing. But it seems like the sport has lost some of its personality in the process.
Either way, what better prospect at the start of a new year than facing Ivan Lendl across the net again? This time we were in Adelaide, in early 2011—the week before the Australian Open. And as well as the usual line-up of doubles matches, Ivan and I were scheduled to play singles. Hopefully, this time he’d hold out until the end of the match.
The promoters knew the match-up would sell a few tickets. To be honest, there aren’t a whole lot of seniors matches that people will pay to see—including most of mine. They don’t give a damn if I play Mikael Pernfors or Andrés Gómez, for example, even though they were great players and they still do a good job, probably better than some of the other guys I get to play against—probably better than me! Of the players of my generation, the ones people wanted to see me take on were Björn and, before he got too old, Jimmy Connors.
My Adelaide match with Lendl almost didn’t happen—it was raining hard and we were wondering if we should play in those conditions. I had been suffering with a long-standing hip problem which at times was so bad I doubted whether I could go on playing. The last thing I needed was to slip on a wet court and injure myself even more. Luckily, the rain stopped and the court dried out so the match could go ahead. This time I beat him pretty easily in an eight-game pro-set. The crazy thing was, he was still trash-talking to me the whole time. I think he was annoyed that it wasn’t as easy as he’d expected to come back in his late forties and play well. It was like he didn’t want to give me credit for playing consistently for the previous ten, fifteen years.
A month later, we were at Madison Square Garden for what was billed as “The Showdown”: me against Lendl, followed by Sampras against Agassi. The promotional picture had photos of Pete, Andre and me as we looked in 2011. In my case in particular, I was that old guy with the gray hair. But for some reason, Lendl’s picture was from about 1985. Wait a minute, I thought, why do three of us look old while he’s looking like he just turned twenty-five? Could it be because the co-promoter of the event was Jerry Solomon, who happens to be Ivan’s agent? Credit to him
, though, because 17,000 people paid good money to see us play two matches, apparently featuring the ghost of Lendl past.
Not that I ever needed motivation when I played Ivan, but playing in front of a crowd that size was always going to make it even more special. I’d played at the Garden many times when the ATP finals had been held there in the past. This was my home turf, and it was exciting to be going back now, because it had been a long time since I’d last hit a ball there. Plus, I was fit, and I was 2–0 against him, so I couldn’t wait.
Just before my match, I was on court having a workout with Pete; I figured if I could keep up with him, I could beat Lendl. As it turned out, I was hitting the ball well and feeling good. I was about to finish up when I decided to move up to the net for a few volleys. Pete hit a ball short, I charged, but as I did so—and I swear this is the only time in my career this ever happened—my foot somehow got stuck underneath me, and I turned my ankle. I knew immediately I’d sprained it. Badly. So I headed straight back to the locker room. My ankle started swelling up like a balloon in front of my eyes. I was in so much pain I was in tears. I wasn’t sure I could play, but the only thing I could think about was that I couldn’t pass this one up. After all, what if I never got to play here again?
Meanwhile, I was overhearing conversations going on around me, supposedly behind my back and out of earshot, between the promoters, agents and players, all trying to figure out what the hell to do. At one stage, I heard one of the promoters going, “If John doesn’t play, we’re going to put in Justin Gimelstob. He’s offered up his services to play.” Are you crazy? That loudmouth? Justin Gimelstob, whose career high in the singles world rankings was 63? He was calling the match for the Tennis Channel and I could tell they were desperate, but the thought of a Sampras, Agassi, Lendl… and Gimelstob event was enough to make me tie my laces up as tight as possible and announce, “OK, guys, I’m playing.”
When my agent, Gary Swain, told Ivan I was going to have my ankle taped up so I could play, Ivan said, “I’m going to kill him.” We were in the locker room, about to go out, when I heard Agassi saying to Lendl, “Are you going to help John out, or are you going to be a fucking pussy and beat his ass?” I think that flustered Ivan. Even though I knew he wanted to kill me, he wasn’t sure what to do because it’s actually tough to play an injured player. Do you play it safe or do you act like an asshole and just go for it?
