John McEnroe

John Patrick McEnroe Jr. (born February 16, 1959 in Wiesbaden, West Germany) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from the United States. McEnroe won seven Grand Slam singles titles — three at Wimbledon and four at the U.S. Open — nine Grand Slam men's doubles titles, and one Grand Slam mixed doubles title. He is remembered for his shot-making artistry and supreme volleying; for his matches against Björn Borg; for his confrontational on-court behavior, which frequently landed him in trouble with umpires and tennis authorities; and for the catchphrase "You cannot be serious!" directed toward an umpire during a match at Wimbledon in 1981. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1999.
After a 12-year absence from the professional tour, McEnroe returned to top-level doubles competition in 2006 and became the oldest male player to win a top-level title in 30 years at San Jose.

Early success
Of Irish descent, McEnroe was born in the U.S military base at Wiesbaden, where his father was stationed with the United States Air Force. When he was less than a year old, his family moved to New York City. He grew up in Douglaston, Queens and learned tennis at the nearby Port Washington Tennis Academy, in Port Washington, on Long Island, NY.
McEnroe took the tennis world by storm as an 18-year-old in 1977, when he made it through the qualifying tournament into the main draw at Wimbledon, where he lost in four sets to Jimmy Connors in the semifinals. It was the best performance by a qualifier at a Grand Slam tournament and a record performance for an amateur in the open era.
Shortly after, McEnroe entered Stanford University and won the NCAA singles and team titles in 1978. After that, he joined the professional tour.
McEnroe signed one of the first professional endorsement deals in tennis with Sergio Tacchini in 1978.
McEnroe won his first Grand Slam singles title at the 1979 US Open. He defeated his good friend Vitas Gerulaitis in straight sets in the final to become the youngest winner of the championships since Pancho Gonzales, who was also 20, in 1948. (Pete Sampras eventually became the youngest US Open Champion at 19 years old.) McEnroe won 10 singles and 17 doubles titles that year (for a total of 27 titles, which marked an open era record).

Famous battles with Björn Borg (1980-81)
In 1980, McEnroe reached the men's singles final at Wimbledon for the first time, where he faced Björn Borg, who was gunning for his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title. At the start of the final, McEnroe was booed by the crowd as he entered Centre Court following heated exchanges with officials during his semifinal victory over Jimmy Connors. But the match itself was arguably the greatest Wimbledon final ever. In a fourth-set tiebreaker that lasted 20 minutes, often simply called "that tie-breaker," McEnroe saved five match points and eventually won 18-16. McEnroe, however, could not break Borg's serve in the fifth set, which the Swede won 8–6. This match was called the best Wimbledon final by ESPN's countdown show "Who's Number One?" and "one of the three or four greatest sporting events in history" by ESPN personality Mike Greenberg.
McEnroe exacted revenge two months later, beating Borg in the five-set final of the 1980 US Open.
Controversy dogged McEnroe when he returned to Wimbledon in 1981. Following his second-round match against Tom Gullikson, McEnroe was fined U.S. $1,500 and came close to being thrown out of the championships after he called umpire Ted James"the pits of the world" and then swore at tournament referee Fred Hoyles. He also made famous the phrase "you cannot be serious," which years later would become the title of McEnroe's autobiography, by shouting it after several umpires' calls during his matches. This behavior was in sharp contrast to that of Borg, who was painted by the tabloid press as an unflappable "ice man." Nevertheless, in matches played between the two, McEnroe never lost his temper.
But despite the controversy and merciless criticism from the British press (who nicknamed him "SuperBrat"), McEnroe again made the Wimbledon men's singles final against Borg. And this time, McEnroe prevailed in four sets to end the Swede's run of 41 consecutive match victories at the All England Club. TV commentator Bud Collins quipped after the July 4th battle, paraphrasing "Yankee Doodle", "Stick a feather in his cap and call it 'McEnroe-ni'!"
The controversy, however, did not end there. In response to McEnroe's on-court outbursts during the championships, the All England Club did not accord McEnroe honorary club membership, an honor normally given to singles champions after their first victory. McEnroe responded by not attending the traditional champions dinner that evening. He told the press: "I wanted to spend (the evening) with my family and friends and the people who had supported me, not a bunch of stiffs who are 70-80 years old, telling you that you're acting like a jerk." The honor was eventually accorded to McEnroe after he won the championship again.
Borg and McEnroe had their final confrontation in the final of the 1981 US Open. McEnroe won in four sets, becoming the first male player since the 1920s to win three consecutive U.S. Open singles titles. Borg never played another Grand Slam event.

Continued success (1982-85)
McEnroe lost to Jimmy Connors in the 1982 Wimbledon final. McEnroe had not lost a set going into the final; however, Connors won the fourth set tiebreak and the fifth set to win the championship.
In 1983, McEnroe reached his fourth consecutive Wimbledon final and swept aside the unheralded New Zealander Chris Lewis in straight-sets. He also played at the Australian Open for the first time, making it to the semifinals before being defeated in four sets by Mats Wilander.
At the 1984 French Open, McEnroe lost a close final match to Ivan Lendl. McEnroe was on the verge of beating Lendl after winning the first two sets. But fatigue and temperamental outbursts got the better of McEnroe, allowing Lendl to win a dramatic five-setter. The loss ended a 39-match winning streak and was the closest McEnroe ever came to winning the French Open.
In the 1984 Wimbledon final, McEnroe played a virtually flawless match to defeat Connors in just 80 minutes, 6–1, 6–1, 6–2. That was McEnroe's third and final Wimbledon singles title.
McEnroe won his fourth U.S. Open title in 1984 by defeating Lendl in straight sets in the final.
1984 was arguably McEnroe's best year on the tennis tour, as he compiled an 82-3 record and won a career-high 13 singles tournaments, including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He also was on the U.S.' winning World Team Cup and runner-up Davis Cup teams. The only male who has come close to matching McEnroe's 1984 win-loss record since then was Roger Federer in 2005. Federer was 81-3 before losing his last match of the year to David Nalbandian.
McEnroe's 1984 season did not end without controversy. While playing and winning the tournament in Stockholm, McEnroe had an on-court outburst that became notorious in sports highlight reels. After questioning a call made by the chair umpire, McEnroe demanded, "Answer my question, jerk!" McEnroe then slammed his racquet into a juice cart beside the court.
In 1985, McEnroe reached his last Grand Slam singles final at the U.S. Open. This time, he was beaten in straight sets by Lendl.

Relationship with Nike
Nike co-founder Phil Knight discovered McEnroe in 1978 and tapped him for the "Rebel With a Cause" ad campaign. Nike has updated the shoes McEnroe wore back then and recently released them as the new Air Zoom Mo GT Court.

Taking time out
By 1986, the pressures of playing at the top had become too much for McEnroe to handle and he took a six-month break from the tour. It was during this sabbatical that he married the actress Tatum O'Neal on 1 August 1986. They would eventually have 3 children: Kevin (born May 23, 1986), Sean (born September 23, 1987), and Emily (born May 10, 1991). When he returned to the tour later in the year, he won three titles. However McEnroe never seemed to be able to recapture his very best form again. In 1987, McEnroe failed to win a title for the first time since turning pro. He took a seven-month break from the game following the US Open, where he was suspended for two months and fined US$17,500 for misconduct and verbal abuse.

Association of Tennis Professionals World No. 1 ranking
According to the ranking system maintained by the Association of Tennis Professionals, McEnroe first became the top ranked singles player in March 1980. He was the top ranked player on 14 separate occasions between 1980 and 1985 and finished the year ranked World No. 1 four straight years from 1981 through 1984. He spent a total of 170 weeks at the top of the rankings.

Success in doubles
McEnroe was also ranked the World No. 1 in doubles for a record 257 weeks. He formed a powerful partnership with Peter Fleming, with whom he won 57 men's doubles titles including four at Wimbledon and three at the US Open. (Fleming was always very modest about his own contribution to the partnership—he once said "the best doubles partnership in the world is John McEnroe and anybody else.") McEnroe won a fourth US Open men's doubles title in 1989 with Mark Woodforde, and a fifth Wimbledon men's doubles title in 1992 with Michael Stich. He also won the 1977 French Open mixed doubles title with childhood pal Mary Carillo.

Representing his country
More than any other player in his era, McEnroe was responsible for reviving U.S. interest in the Davis Cup, which had been shunned by Jimmy Connors and other leading U.S. players. In 1978, McEnroe won two singles rubbers in the final as the U.S. captured the cup for the first time since 1972, beating the United Kingdom in the final. McEnroe continued to be a mainstay of U.S. Davis Cup teams for the next 14 years and was part of U.S. winning teams in 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1992. He set numerous U.S. Davis Cup records, including years played (12), ties (30), singles wins (41), and total wins in singles and doubles (59). He played both singles and doubles in 13 series, and he and Peter Fleming won 14 of 15 Davis Cup doubles matches together.
An epic performance was McEnroe's 6-hour, 22-minute victory over Mats Wilander in the deciding rubber of the 3–2 quarterfinal win over Sweden in 1982, played in St. Louis, Missouri. McEnroe won the match, at the time the longest in Davis Cup history, 9–7, 6–2, 15-17, 3–6, 8–6.
McEnroe nearly broke that record in a 6-hour, 20-minute loss to Boris Becker five years later. Becker won their match, the second rubber in a 3–2 loss to West Germany in World Group Relegation play, 4–6, 15-13, 8-10, 6–2, 6–2.
McEnroe also helped the U.S. win the World Team Cup in 1984 and 1985.

Final years on the tour
McEnroe struggled to regain his form after his 1986 sabbatical. He lost, for example, three times in Grand Slam tournaments to Ivan Lendl, losing straight-set quarterfinals at both the 1987 U.S. Open and the 1989 Australian Open and a long four-set match, played over two days, in the fourth round of the 1988 French Open.
Nevertheless McEnroe had several notable victories in the final years of his career.
In 1989, McEnroe won a record fifth title at the World Championship Tennis Finals (the championship tournament of the WCT tour, which was being staged for the last time), defeating top-ranked Lendl in the semifinals. At Wimbledon, he defeated Mats Wilander in a four-set quarterfinal before losing to Stefan Edberg in a semifinal. He won the RCA Championships in Indianapolis and reached the final of the Canadian Open, where he lost to Lendl. He also won both of his singles rubbers in the quarterfinal Davis Cup tie with Sweden.
Controversy was never far from McEnroe, however. In his fourth round match against Mikael Pernfors at the 1990 Australian Open, McEnroe was disqualified for swearing at the umpire, supervisor, and referee. He was warned by the umpire for intimidating a lineswoman and then docked a point for smashing a racket. McEnroe was apparently unaware that a new Code of Conduct, which had been introduced just before the tournament, meant that a third code violation would not lead to the deduction of a game but instead would result in immediate disqualification. So when McEnroe unleashed a volley of abuse at umpire Gerry Armstrong, he was defaulted.
Later that year, McEnroe reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open, losing to the eventual champion, Pete Sampras. He also won the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basel, defeating Goran Ivanišević in a five-set final. The last time McEnroe was ranked in the world top ten was on October 22, 1990, when he was ranked 9th. His end-of-year singles ranking was 13th.
In 1991, McEnroe won the last edition of the Volvo Tennis-Chicago tournament by defeating his brother Patrick in the final. He won both of his singles rubbers in the quarterfinal Davis Cup tie with Spain. And he reached the fourth round at Wimbledon (losing to Edberg) and the third round at the U.S. Open (losing to Michael Chang in a five-set night match). His end-of-year singles ranking was 28th in the world.
In 1992, McEnroe defeated third-ranked Boris Becker in the third round of the Australian Open 6–4, 6–3, 7–5 before a sell-out crowd. In the fourth round, McEnroe needed 4 hours 42 minutes to defeat ninth ranked Emilio Sanchez 8–6 in the fifth set. He lost to Wayne Ferreira in the quarterfinals. At Wimbledon, McEnroe reached the semifinals where he lost in straight sets to the eventual champion Andre Agassi. McEnroe teamed with Michael Stich to win his fifth Wimbledon men’s doubles title in a record-length 5 hour 1 minute final, which the pair won 5–7, 7–6, 3–6, 7–6, 19-17. At the end of the year, he teamed with Sampras to win the doubles rubber in the Davis Cup final, where the U.S. defeated Switzerland 3–1.
McEnroe retired from the professional tour at the end of 1992. He ended his singles career ranked 20th in the world.

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