McEnroe Preps for 2014 BNP Paribas Showdown With Bryan Brothers at MSG
John McEnroe recently took part in a conference call to promote the upcoming 2014 BNP Paribas Showdown at Madison Square Garden on Monday, March 3. McEnroe will team with his brother Patrick to take on the team of Bob & Mike Bryan in a doubles exhibition. Also on March 3, Novak Djokovic will face Andy Murray in a singles exhibition.
I was wondering if you had a chance to, if you woke up at 3:30 a.m. to watch Federer, what your thoughts were, and do you think if he keeps that attacking style coming in, he can beat Rafael Nadal tomorrow?
JM: I didn’t see that match at 3:30 a.m., I saw bits and pieces and highlights. Getting up at 7:00 a.m. and getting the kids up and ready for school, it’s been a little bit rough for me to pull that one off, but from what I’ve seen, Roger is looking like he’s gotten real comfortable with this racket and it seems to be doing some really good things for him. Obviously this next match will be the ultimate test. Murray was coming off of a surgery so I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to get there so I can’t really comment on that match because I didn’t see the whole thing but from what I did see, Roger looks great and the tough part is trying to get all seven in. Obviously when the guy’s that great, you anticipate he’s still going to make runs, but to go all the way, it’s going to be difficult to beat this guy.
I was wondering what your input is onto the state of the sport today in light of new platforms like World Tennis Day in which this showdown is a part of?
JM: Well, I think it’s important that we keep trying different things. I think our sport suffered from sticking to the same old story and these are the type of events—I mean I used to play at big events at the Garden and I thought it was a huge mistake when we left at the end of the 1989 year and so the idea of playing at one of the greatest arenas in the world seems like a no brainer. Clearly with so many other things, sports, you look at things like the X-Games where things like this didn’t exist 10, 15, 20 years ago. Tennis needs to think out of the box a lot more than it has in the past in order to, sort of, stay relevant. The foundation is great, I mean, it’s a great game, but we need to reach out. We got to do and try a lot more things, even if some of them fail. There are people out there that seem to get that and there are others that don’t seem to recognize the need for it. While it’s healthy in certain places, especially in Europe, we certainly need to be more pro-active, especially here in the States.
Sort of along the same lines, World Tennis Day is more than just the three big events, it’s really more of a whole celebration of tennis—how much do you hope that maybe some kids watching MTV that night or hearing about it can be inspired to pick up a racket?
JM: Well, I have a tennis academy at Randall’s Island and my goal was and continues to be to try and open the game up to people that, A. didn’t know about it or B. can’t afford it or both, so clearly there’s a lot of work to be done. This sport has given me a lot. This is like a broken record—I feel like I try to give back, I feel like I have the energy to give back and I’d like to see this sport flourish in a big way again like it did—it was great times when I was playing in the 70’s and 80’s with Borgue and Cars and Ivan and it feels like we lost some of that. We have some amazing players right now, arguably two of the best players that ever lived, but at the same time, the state of our sport here is not as healthy and the interest level, to me, is not the same as it was and there is a lot of work to be done.
How do you feel about what would be better for tennis overall? Old rivalries like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic continuing to play each other or just new faces coming through?
JM: I think both. I think in particular, in America, that’d be in the mix and winning some majors—that would be quite helpful for us here—someone to build off of, someone to inspire. Girls have the Williams sisters, Serena especially right now and you see girls come in through the ranks and there are guys that are excellent players [John] Isner is a dangerous players and other players have had success, but it doesn’t seem like these guys are competing or winning the events. They’re not at the level of these top players that we’re seeing right now. Rivalries are critical, especially in an individual sport, but new blood is equally as important. I believe someone that would break into the mix and tangle with the Nadal’s and Federer’s and Djokovic’s of the world would be quite beneficial for us.
A few weeks back you made some pretty frank comments on the state of doubles tennis right now. Have you talked to the Bryans about that and do you think they’re going to come out and show you and Patrick just how good doubles is right now?
JM: I had a brief conversation with Mike, I haven’t spoken to Bob, but I’m not in charge of what’s printed. This was some conversation I had with an English journalist back in December when I was playing an event at the Albert Hall which is one of our great senior’s events that we play over there. Only in the last week or so have I heard that there were some comments or that some of it was written about, I don’t know what, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s the perfect example of something where we need to think outside of the box and think of ways to make our sport more interesting and more attractive to people, not only to play, but to watch. Someone like myself—I had a lot of history with doubles and loved doubles and feel like it helped my singles—to me watching what I’ve seen—and I include Davis cup in this—both of them seem to be on semi – life support and the way it’s played and what we’re seeing—you know the Bryans are the exception to the rule. They’re one of the great doubles teams that have played as a great team, but they’re sort of out there by themselves. I think they do everything they can; obviously doubles has been their whole life, but aside from Bob for a very brief period, I don’t think either one of them tried to play singles and so there’s a lot of work to be done, not just in doubles, but in singles and in our sport in general. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be having frank conversations about ways to improve it. To me, it is critical that we try things even if some of them don’t work, as I said to some question earlier. We need to really start experimenting.
What do you think we should be doing? What kind of experimenting?
JM: There are all different types of things. I mentioned that a big complaint was I mean it ranges from tiny things like playing lets on serves to eliminate whether or not people hear it at times to increasing the time of the match to obviously seeing a tie-breaker, to me is a no brainer. In a 5th set of every major because the length of these matches are going to be unhealthy for players especially, if you saw the first week of the Australian open, these guys—I don’t know what these officials were thinking in Australia because these guys had no business being out there. I had to suffer through it myself a handful of times while I was down there and I felt for these players, but it was obscene that they were even out there playing. Ranging from whether or not doubles—I threw out the idea because I know there has been a lot of discussion and complaining from the guys ranked 200 to 800 that they can’t afford to stay on the tour long enough so a lot of money can be saved and spent to encourage them to keep on with it. That would be helpful to them maxing out and becoming the best they can be. There are all different types of things that I’ve talked about this season like whether or not the Davis Cup should be held during an Olympic year and how important the Olympics is to Tennis. To me, these aren’t radically something different and I think sometimes if you just had the singles court, that’d be interesting to see that as far as the doubles rally for singles players and for doubles players, to maybe start their own tour and we can see how successful they’d be on their own. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to think about and wonder if it’s viable and if people would like to do that, they should try that and I would encourage that.
John, when you play against the Bryans, has you ever played against them before and what can we expect to see with your different styles and different eras?
JM: Well, I’m going to be 55 years old when I play and my brother’s 47. The Bryans, while they lost early in Australia, they still had an incredible year last year so they’re still playing at the top. Obviously they were the number one ranked team in the world, but having said that, I think that hopefully I know I’m going to go out and give—I can’t speak for my brother- I’m going to go out and give 110 percent because that’s what I need to do in order to try to make it competitive. The earlier answer is I played one time in Davis Cup when I was doing the commentary and Patrick was the captain, someone got hurt I believe so we went out here and just filled in. My brother and I played them and didn’t fare very well because we were pretty stiff from coming right from sitting down and trying to play but it was still fun and I played them once in team tennis and Isner and I did well against them and played them in sort of a charity match. The short answer is that we’ve never played them in an actual event and this is not an actual event either, but it’s a great opportunity for me to go play them and hopefully we can go show some of the people that I still know a thing or two about doubles but I know I’d be happy if we played well and if we’re able to keep it close, it’d be great.
What are you looking forward to most about coming back and playing here at the Garden? Last time you were here you had the ankle injury but still came out and gave a hell of a performance. What are you looking forward to most about it?
JM: I play well there. This is different with doubles so I gotta shake my brother up and make sure he’s ready, but I’ve been training already so I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be sharp by the time I get there or as sharp as I can be at this particular age but doubles is good for me. I’m only covering half of the court.
Are you interested in coaching Nadal or maybe another professional player?
JM: I can coach him on how to play on clay. But listen, if Rafa Nadal called I’d be happy to go help but I don’t think he needs my help. Just to be around him and see the way he approaches the training and high tournaments would be exciting for me so I’d be interested.
Is there a reason that it’s a male only event in New York? Possibly women are going to be playing in Hong Kong and London, but I say this because women are a large percent of the playing public, especially in the Northeast.
JM: Last year, from what I recall, didn’t Serena play Azarenka? Sharapova’s been there; there have been a lot of women’s matches but you’d have to ask Jerry or the promoters about that but as far as I’m concerned, this is one of these unusual situations where my brother and I live in New York, we have a long history here, the Bryans happen to be the best doubles players in the world—it seems like a great opening match. When Jerry first threw it out at me in Hong Kong last year I sort of laughed about it and the more I thought about it, I thought for me it’s a great opportunity and it’d be a lot of fun just to be around playing at the Garden again. Then there’s Djokavic- Murray which is a great card and I know that a lot of the other matches that have been all over the place including the matches at Madison Square Garden in the past have included women.
When you play on the senior tour now, are you still intense or do you try to have more fun?
JM: Both. I mean, I think I’ll always be intense but I realize that I’m pretty fortunate to be out there still and try to show the sense of humor that I’m hopefully a little better at showing as a commentator than I used to when I played; It’s not as life or death as it used to be for me.
