You Cannot Be Serious (14 page)

Naturally, Vitas was in Richard’s circle, and as I began to mingle in, I felt like a poor imitation of Vitas: still pretty inept socially, a little overwhelmed by the whole scene. I enjoyed it on a certain level, but to the people who used to hang out at Richard’s, I know my graces must have seemed a little weak. I’d usually stay quietly in a corner, just taking it all in. Then afterward I’d hear, “He’s not very friendly.” Or, “He’s shy.” Or, “He doesn’t talk.”

I met remarkable people at those parties. After a while, if you meet enough famous people, you almost get used to it. Almost. I was always proud afterward for not gushing: “God, I met So-and-So!”—but there were times when I just couldn’t help it.

Ultimately, though, I felt it was best to try to show respect to the people I’d meet, and not to turn into some sort of—well, fan. I didn’t want to make whoever it was feel as if I were taking something from him or her. I never wanted to be the way I felt (and still feel) toward people when they invade my privacy or ask for my autograph—all googly-eyed. I always tried to treat anyone I met, no matter how famous, as just a human being—which is what anyone famous really is, much more than most people would imagine.

N
INETEEN SEVENTY-NINE
was an amazing year for me. I would win twenty-seven tournaments that year—admittedly, sixteen of them were in doubles. Now, just barely out of Douglaston, I was part of an incredibly exclusive and high-visibility group, the top five tennis players in the world: Borg, Connors, Gerulaitis, McEnroe, and Vilas.

It’s important to try to understand the steepness of the slope when you’re at the summit of tennis. Arthur Ashe once said that there was as much difference between number ten in the world and number five as there was between number 100 and number ten. Going from number five to number four, he said, is like going from ten to five. And from three on up is inconceivable.

I agree with him. The very top, like the summit of Everest, is weird territory, impossible to understand unless you’ve actually been there.

It all felt real and unreal at the same time: There was the hard work of traveling, practicing, and playing; then there were the cameras, the fans, the parties, the money. The girls. The parties…

Part of the unreality was that I was now on a nearly equal footing, and actually hanging out, with Bjorn and Vitas. Connors always stayed kind of unto himself, and Guillermo Vilas was supremely disciplined (and had Ion Tiriac around to make sure he mostly behaved), but Borg and Gerulaitis had, shall we say, perfected the art of enjoying the fruits of tennis.

They traveled together, they practiced together—and then they had fun. The first time I ever went out with the two of them was at an exhibition in Milan, in the spring of ’79. I marked the occasion by indulging in something I’d never tried before (never mind what)—and the next thing I knew, Vitas and Bjorn were carrying me back into the hotel. I felt sick but wonderful: I had passed the initiation. I was part of the gang.

Broadway Vitas and Bjorn! To me, they were like elder statesmen—it was so exciting to be running with the best tennis players in the world. And that was more or less all I had to do—just go with them. I prided myself—I still pride myself—on being an energetic, even hyperactive, person, but I didn’t have the energy that these guys had! They would run me into the ground on a consistent basis. To be honest, I often felt like a party pooper—I’d eventually say, “I’ve got to get my sleep.”

It’s funny—in certain ways, Vitas was imitating Borg, but if anything, Borg followed
him.
Bjorn would let Vitas do all the talk and the work, set everything up—clubs, women, whatever. Everything except their practice schedule—there, Vitas would defer to Lennart Bergelin (who spent a lot of the non-tennis hours carefully looking the other way).

With off-court pursuits, Bjorn followed Vitas, but even he could go only so far. Vitas had a remarkable ability to recover quickly from whatever fun he was having and reenergize, whereas—off the court, anyway—Bjorn was much more human. Before that exhibition in Milan, they’d been in South America, for a week or two, playing some nutty schedule and, I’m sure, staying up late and not getting enough sleep. When Borg got to Milan, he couldn’t get out of bed, even though he had an iron constitution. The trip had made him sick. Somehow, though, Vitas could still play.

On the other hand, Vitas never beat Bjorn in a big match. He came close—maybe closest in their great Wimbledon semifinal in ’77, my first year. Borg won it, though, the same way he won almost twenty other matches between the two of them.

I think Vitas figured he could live with that—that Borg was just colossally great, and he was near-great. I think that if anyone really frustrated Vitas, it was me.

T
IM
G
ULLIKSON
wiped me out in the fourth round at Wimbledon that year, 6–4, 6–2, 6–4. Tim, rest his soul, played brilliantly that day, and perhaps with a measure of revenge, since I’d just beaten his twin brother, Tom, on the same court in the previous round.

For me, it just felt like a bad day at the office. I don’t want to take anything away from Tim, but I think I fell victim to the expectations that continued to follow me after my incredible Wimbledon run in ’77. (Those expectations were also my own. I put a lot of pressure on myself that year, and it showed in my behavior on the court: I threw my racket a few times, stamped my foot, and let off plenty of steam at visually challenged lines-men. The British tabloids christened me with a new nickname: “Super-Brat.”) Now that I had won the Masters and risen to number four in the world, the natural assumption—the poetic assumption—was that I would return to the hallowed lawns and take on Borg.

Not yet.

Bjorn, of course, won again, beating Roscoe Tanner, at the time the game’s biggest server, to take the fourth of his five titles in a row. He was looking just about undefeatable.

One of the reasons I loved doubles was that it always helped me to feel better about tough singles losses. When Peter Fleming and I beat Brian Gottfried and Raul Ramirez to win our first Wimbledon championship that year, it took a lot of the sting out of my loss to Gullikson. It also felt as though we were starting to bring some excitement into an event that had started to lose steam, now that top players like Borg, Connors, Gerulaitas, and Vilas were looking down their noses at it. Doubles takes time, and different skills than singles does, and it doesn’t pay as much—three of the reasons it has (sadly) once more fallen into eclipse today.

In the second round at the 1979 U.S. Open, I faced Ilie Nastase. Nasty, who had won the tournament in 1972, was thirty-three and long past his prime, but he hadn’t mellowed with age—if anything, he was crazier than ever. And the big New York crowd at the Open always got him going.

Our night match drew a big crowd, eager to see Super-Brat face down the aging
enfant terrible
of tennis. Frank Hammond was officiating the match. Of all the umpires out there, Frank—fat, bald, and dark-mustached, with a deep voice and a no-nonsense manner—was one of the few I liked. I always thought of him as a player’s umpire: He knew everyone by name; he treated you like a person. He’d say, “Come on, John, you’re over the edge; I’m going to have to penalize you now unless you pull it together.” I felt he was trying to get me back on track so I could play my best tennis.

Frank was known as an umpire who could control the crowd and the players in a difficult match, but that night he didn’t have a chance. There was a lot of drinking going on in the stands, and Nasty was on his worst behavior—stalling, arguing, cursing the officials (at one point he kicked over the courtside water cooler), and generally trying to provoke me into going off the rails. Remarkably—and all too unusually—I kept it together. By the third set, Frank had had it: He lost his composure and ranted away at Nasty, docking him a penalty point. The crowd decided then and there that Frank couldn’t do anything right.

I was rattled myself, but then, at one set all and down a break, I began to pull it together, and I won the third set, 6–3. I was serving at 2–1, 15–love in the fourth set, when Nasty began arguing about another line call. He sat down in a linesman’s chair and refused to play. Frank literally begged him to go on, but Nasty wouldn’t stand up. I was furious: It was clear that Nastase knew he was going to lose and was simply looking to prolong everyone’s agony. “Game penalty, Nastase,” Frank said. “McEnroe leads, three games to one.”

Nasty stood up from the chair with his hands on his hips, screaming such vile obscenities at Frank that Frank, after further pleading, defaulted him. Now the crowd really went nuts, throwing paper cups and beer cans onto the court.

Mike Blanchard, the tournament referee, then came onto the court and talked with Nasty and me. Figuring I was going to win anyway, and wanting to avoid a riot, I agreed to play on—despite my memories of the Zan Guerry debacle in the qualifying tournament for the 1976 U.S. Open. I knew I could close out this match. Blanchard told the crowd that if things didn’t quiet down, the match would be discontinued.

Still, as soon as Frank tried to start play again, the crowd started chanting, “Two to one, two to one”—the score before the game penalty. The chanting got louder and louder. I had never seen such pandemonium in a tennis match, and I never would again, even in our wildest South American Davis Cup ties. Finally, Bill Talbert, the tournament director, decided to take Frank out of the match and put Blanchard in the chair. I felt terrible for Frank as he climbed down and walked off the court, the crowd pelting him with garbage. He had lost all credibility. What I found out only later was that the match had essentially destroyed his career. When the ATP hired a group of full-time traveling officials, they didn’t choose Frank.

Once Frank was off the court, I knew the air had gone out of Nasty, and I ran out the rest of the match easily. Even the crowd seemed spent by now. It was finally all over at twelve-thirty in the morning. After the match, I was somewhat astonished when Nastase came up to me and said, “Hey, let’s go to dinner.” Here was another lesson: Business and pleasure must always be separated. “Sure,” I said.

On the other side of the draw, Vitas was having a great run: He beat Clerc in the round of 16, Kriek in the quarterfinals, and in the semis, Tanner, who had just gotten revenge on Borg for his Wimbledon loss. (It was funny how Vitas could beat guys who had beaten Borg, and yet, when it came down to it, couldn’t handle Borg himself. Tennis always works that way.)

But then in the finals, Vitas faced me.

I was coming off a year in which I had won three big victories over Connors: in the Masters, at Dallas (where I’d beaten Borg to win the tournament), and now here at the Open, in straight sets in the semis. There’s no other way to say it—I felt it was my time. I was a little uncomfortable about having to play my buddy Vitas in a big match—but not uncomfortable enough to lose.

In the end, it wasn’t even a particularly close match—I won in straight sets, 7–5, 6–3, and 6–3. In fact, I think that Vitas was more uncomfortable than I was. People were booing, because they were angry that Connors and Borg weren’t playing. At that moment they were still the
real
stars—here we were, just two guys from Queens! But I thought it was miraculous: two guys from Queens in the final of the U.S. Open! I was convinced it was never going to happen again. (I’m still convinced.)

For a couple of years, I’d been working to hang out with Vitas, wondering if I could keep up with him off the court. I’d been trying to be his friend. I looked up to him. And now that I’d blown by him, the victory felt hollow. I had taken something from him. He was still a legitimate number four in the world, but now he was off the mountaintop. Now it was Borg, Connors, and me.

Things were never quite the same between Vitas and me after that.

F
RIENDSHIP IS A FUNNY THING
on the men’s tennis tour. On the one hand, guys tend to leave their competitiveness on the court—you may be fighting to the death, but once you shake hands after a match, you can go out for a beer afterward.

However, beneath it all, it’s still dog-eat-dog out there. You can be friendly off the court, but when you’re all chasing the same dollar, you feel you can never totally let down your guard. It’s screwed up, but that’s the reality of it: You’re basically on your own.

In any sport, you have enemies as well as friends. I couldn’t stand a number of players, and I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise that I’ve generated a few strong feelings myself. A couple of times, guys have refused to shake my hand—once, Vince Van Patten gave me one of those fake-out shakes—where you put out your hand, then jerk it back at the last second.

Sometimes, though, it’s easier to have enemies than to have friends—especially if your friends happen to be fellow professional tennis players and you’re on your way to being number one in the world. It may be a cliché that it’s lonely at the top, but just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Two of my closest friendships growing up were with the two Peters, Rennert and Fleming, and both friendships eventually ran into trouble—partly, I think, because both guys began to feel as if they were in my shadow.

My friendship with Peter Fleming has been one of the most complicated relationships in my life. From the start, there was an incredible bond between us. We were doubles partners for over ten years, and we did great things—historic things—together: winning Wimbledon four times and the U.S. Open three times; winning fourteen out of fifteen Davis Cup matches; going undefeated in seven finals at the Masters.

As gifted a singles player as Peter was—and he made it as high as number eight in the world in 1980—he always acknowledged my achievements in an especially generous way. Envy just didn’t seem to be part of his makeup. We were a great doubles team because of our respective (and complementary) talents, and that indefinable closeness of spirit. However, Peter has one famous quote that, in a way, will always haunt him: When somebody asked him who the greatest doubles team in history was, he said, “John McEnroe and anyone.”