You Cannot Be Serious (17 page)

Still, I didn’t mind the attention! Or the money. Money in professional tennis builds exponentially, on that old the-rich-get-richer model: The better you do, the more tickets (and everything else) you can sell, and the more money people throw at you.

Even by those standards, though, the offer that came into my father’s office in September of 1980 looked almost like an optical illusion: A South African businessman named Sol Kerzner, who had built a huge casino in the middle of a desert in a place called Bophuthatswana, wanted to pay Borg and me $750,000 apiece to play a one-day exhibition in December at his casino, which was called Sun City. The winner of the exhibition would also get $250,000, making it a potential million-dollar payday.

A million dollars for a
day!
Even today, that seems like an unbelievable amount. In 1980, when the dollar was worth more than twice what it is now, the figure was even more incredible. After my eyeballs stopped twirling in their sockets, however, I said to my father, “This kind of money has to be about more than tennis.”

And indeed it was. When we looked into it, we found out that Kerzner wanted us to play the match on Bophutatswana’s “independence” day, but that the state, which the South African government had established in the 1960s (and which the outside world didn’t recognize politically), was very far from independent—it was, in fact, a desperately poor tribal enclave.

Kerzner’s idea—to create some kind of neo-Vegas in the South African desert—was brilliant in its way, but the more I talked to trusted friends and advisers, the more I felt I should stay away. There were some persuasive arguments on the other side (besides the money), but Arthur Ashe was the one who ultimately convinced me that I was right. Arthur himself had gone to South Africa several times to play tournaments and to try, through his words and presence, to bring anti-apartheid pressure to bear on the government. He felt that my taking a huge sum of money to play the exhibition would be a very different matter—that it would both tacitly endorse apartheid and look bad for me.

After weeks of talking to dozens of people, my dad and I decided to walk away from the offer (something Frank Sinatra did not do when he signed to perform for a week at Sun City’s opening in early 1981). I thought I had better ways to make a million bucks. I was proud to look at myself in the mirror after that: For one of the first times in my life, I had actually taken a stand.

N
INETEEN-EIGHTY HAD BEEN
a tremendous year for me; I was enjoying the life of a touring tennis pro very much, and now I was a solid number two on the computer. I came into the Masters, at the beginning of January, full of confidence—and also a wee bit chunky.

Shades of Junior Davis Cup! The holidays were the culprit, I think. When I stepped on a scale at home just after New Year’s, right before the Masters started, I weighed 182—at least ten pounds over my ideal weight. For the first time in a long while, I felt a little bit of panic. The Masters had always been one of my big events: I liked to make a good showing at my favorite venue, in front of the hometown crowds.

Which was exactly what I failed to do that year. The crowds were electric, but I lost to Gene Mayer, to Borg (in a match that drew the biggest crowd ever to attend an indoor tennis tournament), and then to José-Luis Clerc, and was only able to salvage the week by winning the doubles with Peter for the third straight time (fortunately, in doubles you don’t have to cover as much court!).

I went straight home and came down with the flu, and spent a week in bed. Afterward, I made a New Year’s resolution to get in better shape, and I cut out beer and dessert completely. It worked—a bit too well. By April, when I was on the West Coast for the hard-court tournament at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, I stepped on the scale at Stacy’s house (we were having one last try at getting our relationship back together) and was mildly shocked to see that I weighed 154.

Apparently, it was a good fighting weight: I beat Sandy Mayer in the final at L.A. Also, at the end of March, I’d defeated Borg on indoor carpet in Milan, and Tomas Smid on the same surface in Frankfurt; and later in April I won the big indoor tournament in Dallas (which was on a par with the Australian and French Opens in those days).

H
OWEVER
, the big story of my spring that year was Davis Cup. I had played three years for Tony Trabert, and had helped us to win in 1978 and 1979. After we lost the Cup in 1980, though, Tony felt he’d had it as captain.

I don’t think my behavior helped. When it came to Davis Cup, I was kind of a one-man show, and Tony was getting tired of the act. I wasn’t one iota less temperamental and argumentative when I played for my country than I was when I played for my living, and I know that didn’t always sit well with Tony (it also doesn’t sit well with me, at this distance, that I failed to give respect to a fine former player like Nicky Pietrangeli, who refereed at our tie against Argentina, and whom I burdened with my usual nonsense).

Tony had been a fine player himself—he was the last American before Michael Chang to win the French Open—but he was old-school: You let your racket do the talking.

I was definitely new-school.

The proverbial back-breaking straw was probably our 1980 tie against Mexico, in Mexico City. The Latin American Davis Cup crowds were always pretty out-there—lots of rhythmic chanting, flag-waving, and drum-beating—and this crowd did all that and more. If the Mexico City crowd didn’t like the way things were going, they threw coins and seat cushions onto the court. They were pretty wild.

So was I. In fact, Peter Fleming and I were partners in crime that year—we were pretty much on our worst behavior during our doubles match. I didn’t help matters any when I cursed at Mexico’s captain, who didn’t need a translator to understand.

Arthur Ashe replaced Tony in 1981, and what a difference he made: not that he was a better or worse captain, just very, very different. Tony was a talker: Before a match he’d ask if there was anything you wanted a reminder on during play—to keep moving forward, keep the service toss high, whatever. I liked that.

Arthur was a statue. Don’t get me wrong: Off the court, I thought Arthur was a great guy. We could have dinner together, talk, laugh. On the court, though, he said next to nothing. If I was going nuts about a call, he might come over and ask me, in a soft syllable or two, to try and take it easy—but that was it. Mostly, he just sat in his chair by the net and watched.

Our first tie that year was against Mexico again, at home this time (thank God!), at La Costa, down near San Diego. Arthur’s big thing, for his Davis Cup debut, was to try to get both Connors and me to play for him. As I’ve said, Jimmy wasn’t precisely a Davis Cup stalwart—“holdout” would be putting it more accurately.

This year wasn’t any different. Connors hemmed and hawed, he said he had scheduling conflicts, his toe was hurting—whatever. What else was new? For Jimmy, tennis meant money, and Davis Cup wasn’t money.

Then, however, when we got to La Costa, who should appear but James Scott Connors—to practice with us! Arthur’s usual sphinx-like expression turned almost puzzled on that one. It felt like a big tease—who knows what Jimmy had in mind. Who ever knows what Jimmy has in mind?

As it turned out, we could have used him on the court. Even without their drum-beating and seat-cushion-throwing hometown crowd, Mexico almost stunned us after Roscoe Tanner lost his first match to Raul Ramirez, and then Ramirez and a seventeen-year-old Los Angeles high-school student named Jorge Lozano beat Sherwood Stewart and Marty Riessen in doubles. I had to beat Ramirez in the final match to pull out the victory: It was the first time the U.S. had come back from 2–1 down since 1961.

Arthur almost smiled.

M
Y DRAW AT THE
F
RENCH
wasn’t too difficult that spring—until the quarterfinals, when I went up against Lendl. However, despite having been on a bit of a losing streak against him lately, I actually felt quite confident about beating Ivan. My confidence was up in general, and I was trim, fast, and strong. I felt like a world-beater.

That just goes to show you how unpredictable a game tennis is. Paris was cold and misty that spring: the air was heavy,
Court Centrale
was damp and slow. The conditions did not favor a serve-and-volleyer—it was just too hard to finish off points. It felt as if no matter what I did, Lendl had an answer. He ended up beating me in straight sets.

I sucked it up. I firmly believe that one of the hallmarks of a champion—any champion—is the ability to absorb losses and regain confidence immediately. The loss in Paris hurt, but in the larger scheme of things, I knew it was just a momentary stumble in a strong year. And I had my eyes on a bigger prize.

My next win, at Queen’s, the big grass-court tune-up for Wimbledon, convinced me I was ready. In a strange way, though—it’s hard to explain this—my confidence itself made me nervous, deep down, in places nobody but I knew about. One of the hardest things for me has always been the pressure to live up to my potential—to beat the guys I shouldn’t lose to in the early rounds, and get to the finals, where I was supposed to be.

I wouldn’t have told this to a soul back then, but as early as my first Wimbledon in ’77, I realized I had the potential to be the very best: the best tennis player in the world. I confirmed it for myself as I rose through the rankings—but then, more and more, the problem became that almost everybody was somebody I shouldn’t lose to.

The pressure became incomprehensible. I countered it by building defenses that almost nothing, and nobody, could get through.

Almost.

You see it with the great players in any sport, but particularly in tennis, because you’re out there by yourself: Disasters can happen even when things are going well. The reverse is also true—you’re never out of it. But at the same time, you can never totally relax.

For me, the disasters have almost always occurred inside my own head.

You try to get yourself to the point where you’re as fit and match-tough as possible. Once you’ve put in the work, though, the game becomes extremely mental. I had enough inner strength to know I could beat anyone at all, anytime, on any surface. But behind my defenses were some very dark places. There was always a devil inside me whom I had to fight. And the devil was fear of failure.

For me, the relief of not failing has always been just as strong as, if not stronger than, the joy of winning. They say that when things are going really well, you should just let it happen, but that’s exactly when I always started to get nervous. And that’s often when my outbursts began.

I could be dominating a guy, up 6–2, 6–2, 2–0 and 40–love on his serve—but if he somehow got out of that game, the negative thoughts would start to creep in. Then, since I couldn’t joke around to ease the tension, the tension built up until it started to come out of my ears.

And then my mouth.

I was unbelievably tense at Wimbledon in 1981 because I knew, after beating Borg at the Open, that I could win it, should win it,
would
win it—unless disaster struck.

Well, disaster did strike, and kept on striking, round after round, and somehow I kept getting through—endearing myself to nobody in the process.

I had been famous for a few years now, but Wimbledon in ’81 is where I became infamous.

I
T BEGAN AT THE BEGINNING
. Although this was to become one of my most famous matches, I’m positive almost nobody remembers who I played, and when I played it: Tom Gullikson, first round, Wimbledon 1981. Court One. I was often extra-nervous in the early rounds of tournaments, but this year, at this tournament, I was as tight as a piano wire. The umpire, a pleasant-enough middle-aged gentleman named Edward James, came up to me when I first walked onto Court One and said something that seemed totally off the wall: “I’m Scottish, so we’re not going to have any problems, are we?”

I guess since my name started with “Mc,” he thought we were soul brothers! “I’m Irish,” I told him, curtly. Nervously.

Things went downhill from there.

I had behaved badly at Wimbledon before. I was already “Super-Brat.” Now I upped the ante. Tom could be a pretty tough opponent on grass, but I had a much tougher adversary out there that day. Even though I would eventually win in straight sets, 7–6, 7–5, 6–3, I just couldn’t rest easy when I got ahead: The devils were crawling all over my brain that afternoon. When Gullikson went ahead 4–3 in the second set on a miserable line call, I smashed my Wilson Pro Staff racket, and James issued me a warning. And later, when a linesman called a serve deep that I had clearly seen throw up a spray of chalk, I threw my
new
racket and gave a scream that came straight from Queens—but that has traveled very far in the years since.

“Man, you cannot be serious!”

I stopped play, walked up to Mr. James, and asked him if he’d seen the chalk fly.

“There was chalk,” James said. “But it was chalk which had spread beyond the line.”

I rolled my eyes, shook my head, and walked back to the baseline to play. But then, at 1–1 in the third set, Gullikson hit a serve that was long, and nobody called it out. After we’d played the point, my disbelief mounting with each shot, I asked James if he’d happened to notice that the serve was out.

“The serve was good, Mr. McEnroe,” he said.

“You guys are the absolute pits of the world, you know that?” I screamed. Another colorful bit of Queens-ese.

James scribbled something on his notepad, then looked up. “I am going to award a point against you, Mr. McEnroe,” he said.

Mr. Edward James had never been to Queens. It later turned out that what he had written down on his pad was, “You guys are the absolute
piss
of the world.” Hence the point penalty, for “obscenity.” I didn’t know that at the time, of course, and I saw red. I demanded to see the referee. Out came the referee, Fred Hoyles, a farmer from Lincolnshire. Appropriately (or not), I used a barnyard epithet to describe my opinion of the situation. Then I pointed at James and yelled—loud enough for the TV microphones, and most of Court One, to hear—“We’re not going to have a point taken away because this guy is an incompetent fool!”