John McEnroe, winner of seven Grand Slam singles titles, will be in Atlanta on Saturday to compete in the PowerShares Series tennis event at Gwinnett Center.
Joining McEnroe will be Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Mats Wilander in the Champions Shootout. The event will consist of two semifinals matches followed by the winners playing for the title. The quartet has combined to win 19 Slams.
McEnroe took a few minutes last week to talk about Hurricane Sandy, the future of U.S. tennis and his favorite movie role.
Q: Were you in New York doing Hurricane Sandy? Did you make it through OK?
A: Fortunately, I fared pretty well. I was in New York. I live in Manhattan. It was a bit hairy. It's brought the tri-state area to a standstill. I have a home out on the island which suffered some significant damage because of trees. Everyone has damage. But I was lucky that where I live full-time, things were relatively unscathed. My kids are OK, so compared to what other people went through, I was lucky.
We don’t normally get a lot of hurricanes, so it was weird from that standpoint. And how long it lasted was crazy. We are trying to pick things back up. Obviously a lot of people have cabin fever. They’ve been in their homes and not able to go anywhere. Courier, one of the guys playing in Atlanta, doesn’t have power at his apartment, so he came up just to get out to find a place to plug in his computer and get a warm meal and hit a tennis ball. Suddenly you realize, “Wow, hitting a tennis ball is a pretty nice thing to do.”
Q: Speaking of tennis, the world-wide calendar is full of events. Is it getting to the point where there are too many of them, that having so many has watered down everything except the Grand Slams?
A: There have been too many events since I came into the game in 1977. If anything, there were more events. They seemed to have managed to cut the calendar, unless you are in the Davis Cup, to 10 months. It used to be virtually year-round.
But there’s still too many events. Particularly because the game, to me, has become more physical than ever. Your body can only take so much. Not only do the players need recovery time from a long season but so do the people watching it. That’s something people don’t pay enough attention to — an offseason — so that you can recharge your batteries and work out in a way that you can build your body’s strength up again.
As for the Slams, they are bigger than they ever were and sadly the players don’t have much say in them to this day. I think we should have been partners way back when. We had chances when it was discussed 20-25 years ago and we didn’t take advantage of that. Because of that you have the Slams and then the other events, which the players have a say in, that are barely on the map.
A lot of events are taking place in parts of the world where they have a lot of money, like the Middle East or Far East. But there’s not a lot of interest. So you wonder how that’s going to impact things in the long term. Clearly, Europe is the place where tennis is its biggest and where most of the biggest events — and two of the biggest events — are and they are in great cities (London and Paris). Predominately, you are seeing more events taking place there and less bigger events in the States, for example, unless there are the men and women together, like in Key Biscayne or Palm Springs. They are the only two events on the calendar that people pay much attention to at this stage.
Q: Do you think that partially explains why U.S. tennis players are having trouble competing with the Roger Federers and those guys?
A: It's intertwined. Because we don't have a top player, it's tougher to get the money perhaps to be able to support the top players at a certain location in the States, like Atlanta, for example, or Chicago. L.A. is struggling. There are less events than probably I can remember in the States.
Obviously if John Isner becomes No. 1 in the world, that would spark more interest than if he’s 10 or 12 in the world. Americans got a bit spoiled. There’s been a lot of success going back to Arthur Ashe, (Jimmy) Connors, myself, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Courier. You look at Courier, he only won four. Now, four would be incredible, if we could say somebody had four Grand Slams. We only have one in 10 years since Pete won the Open and retired. That was the next year with (Andy) Roddick at the U.S. Open.
It’s sort of the chicken and the egg but the bottom line is we have to figure out a way to get our better athletes playing because the game has become more athletic and that’s one of the issues. The other issue I talk about all the time is the affordability and accessibility of it. We have to think outside the box, especially if our top players aren’t American.
If you look at the World Series, a lot of those guys weren’t Americans either but baseball seems to still be popular, even if the ratings weren’t great for the World Series. Basketball is becoming more international, so we should be marketing our players better, even if we right now we don’t have the top Americans.
Q: Who will carry the flag for the Americans?
A: When you say carry the flag, I don't see Americans that right now are going to be winning majors. Isner is a great story — the fact that he went four years to college (at Georgia), the fact that he became a better player because of it — is a good lesson for a lot of these kids that try to turn pro or try to leave school too early and don't take advantage of the college experience. Even though I went one year (at Stanford), I think it helped my pro career that I experienced that. Isner got to 10 in the world. Whether he can win a major, that's another story.
Mardy Fish, late in his career, got to No. 8 in the world and then it seems like he had a tough time handling that for the most part. And he’s had some health issues related to that. Roddick will probably end up in the (Hall of Fame). Though he only won one Slam, he played in five finals. I don’t see a guy right now that will be at the top of the game with the likes of Federer or (Rafael) Nadal.
We have some very good players. Ryan Harrison will continue to improve. We have Sam Querrey, who just beat (Novak) Djokovic. He’s a dangerous player who on a given day can beat anybody. But if you talk about winning Slams, that’s another issue all together.
Q: Lastly, what has been your favorite TV or movie cameo?
A: If I had to pick one, "30 Rock" would be No. 3. No. 1 and 2 would be "Mr. Deeds" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Those would be the top two, that the kids come up to me. I take pride in being able to report that there are a thousand kids that know me from "Mr. Deeds" and don't know that I'm a tennis player. I find that funny.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” my kids are in their 20s, they always say, “You’ve got to do this.” I remember when Larry (David) called me to do it, it was a last-minute thing. He called me and said, “You want to do ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm?’ and it was like two days later.
I had to leave right away and said, “Who pulled out?” He said, “It’s not bad being second best. Hundreds of people want to do this.” He’s just like he is on or off camera.
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