John McEnroe Visits Dallas

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It was a homecoming of sorts as Hall of Fame tennis legend John McEnroe came to Dallas to speak at the PwC SMU Athletic Forum Luncheon on Wednesday.  SMU’s Moody Coliseum was the site of the season-ending championships of the World Championship Tennis circuit from 1971-79 before the event was moved to Reunion Arena from 1980-89.  The WCT was the predecessor to today’s ATP World Tour. 

I had a chance to sit down with the 7-time Grand Slam champion as he reminised about his time in Dallas and gave his take on the modern game.

McEnroe played in 6 consecutive WCT Finals in Dallas, the first coming at Moody Coliseum in 1979, when he defeated Bjorn Borg 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 for the title.

He fondly remembers Moody Coliseum as a “great place to play, seats are kind of close…providing the type of energy that was helpful to the players, myself included.”   McEnroe recalls a career highlight which took place in Moody in 1979.  “One of my breakthrough events,” said McEnroe, “Because it was the first time that I beat Borg and [Jimmy] Connors at the same event.”

That match marked the first of 6 consecutive finals contested by McEnroe.  His 5 WCT Championship Finals titles are the most by anyone, the last coming at Reunion Arena in 1989.

“That Dallas WCT event was a huge event, probably the 5th biggest event in the entire year,” remembers McEnroe, “With the top 8 guys from the indoor season, so its too bad, with the politics of the sport, the way it panned out.”

The current ATP World Tour Finals, an event patterned after the WCT Championship Finals, is held in London.

McEnroe talked about the challenges of keeping events on American soil, with

most of the top players hailing from Europe.  “If you don’t have a top American, thats challenging and winning majors, it’s making it more difficult, clearly, for events to survive. So we’ve lost a number of events and those events have gone abroad,” he explained.

McEnroe acknowledged challenges developing younger players in America, with all the other sports competing for the best athletes.  He spoke of the different views for developing players,  “I don’t think there is any one way where you succeed or don’t succeed. I succeeded in a situation where I felt like participating in other sports as a kid … was helpful for me in the long run. “You can talk to someone else, maybe Jim Courier or a few other guys who say because they went to Bolliteris and lived and breathed it helped them, a lot of people will tell you it didn’t. The key is sort of recognizing what would work and what wouldn’t work for a young kid.”

“My tennis academy is for kids that go to school, and I think it is a good thing to interact with kids of your own age and to sort of have friendships and be part of teams. I think that takes them away from the pressure of being by yourself all the time.”

He talked about the need to recruit the best athletes, “We would like to get some of the football players and basketball players.” He noted that girls are drawn to tennis easier than boys, “The women, you see the best athletes, Serena, Venus, among others… for girls growing up, your best bet, in a way, is to play tennis. Your best chance and your most equal footing, level playing field is for girls to play tennis. They don’t have a football league, in basketball they get paid 1/30th the money that men do, or maybe less. So for a girl it’s much more attractive, more accepted.” To get the boys you have to make the sport affordable and sort of sexy in a way to make them want to do it instead of play football.”

Texas’ tennis star, Andy Roddick has questioned the work habits (see full article here) of some of the American players, leading to a lack of results.  McEnroe thinks there is more to it,  “Let’s face it, these guys are better than our guys right now. I mean, let’s be honest here, Roger and Rafa are arguably the two greatest players that ever lived, Djokovic is one of the greatest defensive players and becoming one of the greatest players who ever played. Murray is a guy who could have played any sport. Those are phenomenal players.”  He continues,  “We have some excellent players and good athletes, but you’re talking about the elite of the elite. Ultimately, those guys are just a level above anybody.”

McEnroe compares the imbalance between the top few and the rest of the field to other sports.   “I bet you it’s like that in other sports. In any sport, there is the elite – LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady. There’s a reason why those are the true greats.” “After the five great players, it gets more difficult to call the next 40.”

McEnroe talked about the challenges facing women players like Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka who have to face Serena Williams,  “She’s [Sharapova] a great player who competes extremely hard, one of the best competitors I’ve ever seen. But she can’t go toe-to-toe and she doesn’t have it. She’s tried different things, if you watched her play the French Open final, she played about as well as she possibly could and she lost 6-4,6-4.  But your talking about the greatest player that ever lived, in my opinion, female player. Your talking about a great player, there’s a difference.”

“Azarenka, athletically, is somewhere in between Maria and Serena,” he continues,  “She’s a better athlete than Maria, but she’s not as good as Serena in my opinion. So she’s got to fight and battle like she did to get one set. But, she’s outmanned ultimately.

“She’s [Serena Williams] athletically better and she’s mentally extremely tough. She’s the best female player I’ve ever seen, all in all. The most intimidating, and I’ve seen Martina [Navratilova] at her best, she was obviously very intimidating, Chrissie [Evert] was like a backboard, and Steffi [Graf] was the best athlete until Serena. [Justine] Henin was the best tennis player I ever watched play, she was the only one that could actually (challenge Serena) because she was so talented. She may have hit the ball better than Serena, but she was also 3 inches smaller and not as big in some other ways. That’s just the way things work out sometimes.”

McEnroe, a basketball fan, is keenly aware of Dallas Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki’s passion for tennis.  “I’ve seen Dirk a few times around tennis… I’ve only met him a couple of times, but certainly, I’d love to get him on the tennis court, I don’t think that could be arranged this trip, but that would be great. I’d love to see how he serves.”

To me, that sounds like a good way to open the new Moody Coliseum.

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