John McEnroe: The Life Story Behind Tennis' Fiery Genius
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John McEnroe played tennis like a man arguing with the world, and the world argued back, and the argument became one of the great shows in the history of sport. He was a genius with a racket, a left-hander with hands so soft that he could make the ball do things no other player could make it do, and he was also a man with a temper so famous that his words, “You cannot be serious!”, became a part of the English language. He won seven Grand Slam singles titles, he was the world number one, and he had a season in 1984 that many people call the greatest single season any male player has ever had. And he did it all while fighting with umpires, with crowds, with the press, and, most of all, with himself.
His story is not only about tennis. It is about a boy from Queens, New York, who was raised by strict parents, who was taught to be polite and to work hard, and who discovered, on a tennis court, that he had a gift that nobody else had, and a temper that nobody else could control. It is about his rivalry with Bjorn Borg, the calm Swede who was his opposite in every way, and about how the two men made each other famous. It is about a career that burned brightly and then faded, and about a second career as a commentator, an artist, and a voice that the tennis world still listens to today.
This is the life of John McEnroe, the fiery genius, the man who could not be serious, and the man who was, in the end, very serious indeed about the game he loved.
Queens: A Strict Home and a Gifted Boy
John Patrick McEnroe Jr. was born on 16 February 1959 in Wiesbaden, West Germany, where his father, John Sr., was serving in the United States Air Force. His mother, Kay, was a nurse, and the family moved back to the United States when John was still a baby, settling in Douglaston, Queens, in New York City. It was a comfortable, middle-class home, and his parents were strict and loving in the way that many parents of that time were: they expected good manners, good grades, and hard work, and they did not accept excuses. John was the eldest of three sons, and he was a bright, intense child, a boy who felt things deeply and who did not hide what he felt.
He started playing tennis at the age of eight, at the Douglaston Club, near his home, and he was good at once, not because he was strong, but because he had hands that seemed to understand the ball. He could touch the ball softly, he could angle it, he could drop it just over the net, and he could do things with a racket that coaches had never seen a child do. He was also a good student, and he played other sports, but tennis was the one that mattered, and by the time he was a teenager, he was one of the best junior players in America.
He was coached, in his early years, by Harry Hopman, the great Australian coach, and by Tony Palafox, a former professional, and they taught him the serve-and-volley game, a style that suited his hands and his quick mind. He learned to come to the net, to volley with touch, and to serve with placement rather than power, and he learned it well. But he also learned, in those years, that he had a temper, and that the temper came out on the court, when a call went against him, or when he missed a shot he thought he should have made. His parents tried to teach him to control it, and his coaches tried too, but the temper was a part of him, and it would stay with him for his whole career.
He went to Stanford University in California, and he played college tennis there for one year, winning the NCAA singles title in 1978, and leading Stanford to the team championship. It was a happy year, and it showed the world that he was ready for the professional game, but it was also a year that taught him that college was not where he belonged. He was too good, and too restless, and the professional tour was calling him, and in the summer of 1978, he turned professional, and the tennis world would never be the same again.
Wimbledon at Eighteen and the Borg Rivalry
McEnroe’s arrival on the world stage was sudden and shocking. In 1977, when he was only eighteen years old and still an amateur, he played at Wimbledon as a qualifier, a player who had to win three matches just to get into the main draw, and he reached the semi-final, losing to Jimmy Connors, one of the best players in the world. It was an extraordinary achievement for a teenager, and it announced him as a player to watch, a young man with a game that was already good enough to trouble the very best.
In 1978, he turned professional, and in 1979, he won his first Grand Slam title, at the US Open, beating his friend Vitas Gerulaitis in the final. He was twenty years old, and he was a champion, and the tennis world began to understand that it had a new star, a star who was different from any that had come before. He was left-handed, he was artistic, and he was angry, and the crowds did not know whether to love him or to hate him, and in the end, they did both, often in the same match.
His greatest rivalry was with Bjorn Borg, the Swedish champion who had won Wimbledon five times in a row, and who was, in every way, the opposite of McEnroe. Borg was calm, silent, and cold on the court, a man who never showed emotion, while McEnroe was loud, emotional, and fiery. They played each other fourteen times, and each man won seven matches, and their matches became the most famous in the history of the sport. The greatest of them was the Wimbledon final in 1980, a match that lasted five sets, and that included a fourth-set tiebreak that went to 18-16, one of the most thrilling passages of play ever seen on a tennis court. Borg won that match, but McEnroe won the rematch in the final in 1981, and the rivalry became a legend.
The Borg-McEnroe rivalry was more than a sporting contest. It was a clash of two ways of being: ice against fire, silence against noise, control against passion. The world loved it, because it was a story that anyone could understand, and because both men were, in their own ways, great. Borg retired in 1981, at the age of 25, and McEnroe was left without his great rival, and the game was poorer for it, but the matches they played together are still watched today, and they are still talked about as the finest tennis ever played.
The 1984 Season: The Greatest Year
In 1984, McEnroe played the greatest season of his career, and one of the greatest seasons any male tennis player has ever played. He won 82 matches and lost only three, a record that has never been matched, and he won Wimbledon and the US Open, and he reached the final of the French Open, where he lost to Ivan Lendl in five sets, after leading by two sets to none. It was a season of almost perfect tennis, and it showed the world what McEnroe could do when his game and his mind were in harmony.
His tennis that year was a joy to watch. He served and volleyed with a grace that made the game look easy, he touched the ball with a softness that no other player could match, and he read the game like a chess player, always one move ahead of his opponent. He beat Jimmy Connors in the Wimbledon final in straight sets, playing a match that many people call the finest ever played on Centre Court, and he beat Ivan Lendl in the US Open final, also in straight sets. He was, for that year, untouchable, and the tennis world agreed that it was watching a genius at the peak of his powers.
But even in that perfect season, the temper was there, and the famous outburst at Wimbledon in 1981, when he shouted “You cannot be serious!” at an umpire, had already made him a figure of controversy. He argued with officials, he broke rackets, he swore, and he was fined again and again, and the press wrote about his behaviour as much as they wrote about his tennis. Some people loved him for it, because he said what they felt, and because he refused to pretend that a bad call was a good one. Others hated him for it, because they thought he was rude, and because they thought he set a bad example for children. McEnroe himself has said, many times, that he regrets some of the things he did, and that he wishes he had controlled himself better, but he has also said that the anger came from a place of caring, from a man who hated to lose, and who hated injustice, even in a small thing like a line call.
The 1984 season was the peak, and it was also, in a way, the beginning of the end, because after that year, his game began to slip, and his life began to change, and the genius who had been untouchable began to look human again.
The Fall From the Top and the Long Goodbye
After 1984, McEnroe’s career began to decline, slowly at first, and then more quickly. He took a break from the game in 1986, after the birth of his first child, and when he came back, he was not the same player. The young stars of the game, Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker, and Stefan Edberg, were fitter and stronger than he was, and they played a power game that his touch game could not always match. He still won tournaments, and he still played beautiful tennis in flashes, but the dominance was gone, and he knew it, and the knowledge made him angrier, not calmer.
He won his last Grand Slam singles title at the US Open in 1984, and he never won another one, although he continued to play singles until 1992, and he continued to play doubles for many years after that. He won his seventh and final singles Grand Slam at the US Open in 1984, and the years that followed were a long goodbye, a period in which he tried to recapture the magic of 1984, and found that it had gone, not because he had forgotten how to play, but because the game had moved on, and because his own life had moved on too.
He was married to the actress Tatum O’Neal in 1986, and the couple had three children, Kevin, Sean, and Emily, but the marriage was unhappy, and it ended in divorce in 1994, after a long and public struggle. He later married Patty Smyth, a singer, in 1997, and the couple have two daughters, Anna and Ava, and they have built a happy family life together. He has spoken honestly about the difficulties of his first marriage, and about the mistakes he made, and about the lessons he learned, and his honesty about his personal life is one of the things that has made people respect him in his later years.
He retired from singles in 1992, after losing in the semi-final of Wimbledon to Andre Agassi, and he played his last Davis Cup matches for the United States in the years that followed. He had won seven Grand Slam singles titles, three at Wimbledon and four at the US Open, and he had also won nine Grand Slam doubles titles, most of them with his partner Peter Fleming, a partnership that was one of the great doubles teams in history. He had also helped the United States to win the Davis Cup five times, and he had been the world number one in singles and in doubles, a rare achievement. It was a great career, even if it had ended sooner than anyone had expected.
Doubles, Davis Cup, and the Team Man
It is easy to forget, when talking about McEnroe’s singles career, how great he was at doubles, and how much he loved playing for a team. He won nine Grand Slam doubles titles, and he was the world number one in doubles as well as in singles, and he played doubles with a joy and a freedom that he did not always show in singles. His partnership with Peter Fleming was built on friendship and on trust, and the two men understood each other on the court in a way that few doubles teams ever have. Fleming was the steady one, and McEnroe was the artist, and together they were almost unbeatable.
He also loved the Davis Cup, the team competition between countries, and he played for the United States with a passion that surprised people who thought he only cared about himself. He played in the Davis Cup for fifteen years, and he won the competition five times, and he played some of his best tennis in that event, because he was playing for his country, and for his teammates, and not only for himself. He holds the record for the most Davis Cup singles wins by an American, and he played the longest match in Davis Cup history, a six-hour match against Mats Wilander of Sweden in 1982, which he won, and which left both men exhausted and proud.
The Davis Cup brought out the best in McEnroe, because it gave him a team, and because it gave him a reason to play that was bigger than his own ranking. He was a man who needed people around him, and who needed to feel that he belonged, and the Davis Cup gave him that. It is a part of his career that is often overlooked, but it is a part that he treasures, and it is a part that shows a different side of him: not the angry man arguing with an umpire, but the teammate who would play for six hours for his country, and who would do it again the next day if he was asked.
The Commentator, the Artist, and the Second Act
After he stopped playing, McEnroe did not disappear. He became a television commentator, first in America and then in Britain, and he turned out to be as good at talking about tennis as he had been at playing it. He is honest, he is funny, and he is not afraid to say what he thinks, and the audiences love him for it, because he tells the truth about the game, and about the players, in a way that few other commentators dare to do. He has become the voice of tennis for a generation of fans, and his commentary on Wimbledon, in particular, is loved by millions of people who never saw him play.
He also became an artist, and a musician, and a man with a life outside tennis. He paints, he plays the guitar, and he has a gallery in New York, and he has spoken about how art gives him a peace that tennis never did. He is a man of many interests, and he is a man who has learned to live with himself, and to enjoy his life, in a way that he could not when he was a young champion. He has also written books, and he has spoken openly about his career, about his temper, and about the things he wishes he had done differently, and his honesty has made people like him more, not less.
He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1999, and he has been honoured by the tennis world in many ways, but the greatest honour, perhaps, is that he is still loved by the crowds at Wimbledon, the place where he once argued with umpires and broke rackets, and where he is now welcomed as a beloved elder of the game. The crowds cheer him when he walks onto Centre Court, and they listen to his commentary, and they forgive him for the anger of his youth, because they understand, now, that the anger came from a man who cared too much, not from a man who cared too little.
Today, McEnroe lives in New York with his wife Patty and their family, and he continues to commentate, to paint, and to play in senior events, where he still shows flashes of the genius that made him famous. He is a man who has lived two lives: one as a fiery champion, and one as a thoughtful elder, and he has lived both of them with the same intensity. His story is not a simple one, but it is a rich one, and it is a story that the tennis world will keep telling for a long time.
The 1980 Wimbledon Final: A Match for the Ages
The Wimbledon final of 1980, between McEnroe and Borg, is the match that people still talk about when they talk about tennis, and it deserves a section of its own, because it was more than a match. It was a contest between two men who played the game in opposite ways, and who brought out the best in each other, and it was played in front of a crowd that knew it was watching history. Borg had won Wimbledon four times in a row, and he was the king of the grass courts, and McEnroe was the young challenger, the left-hander with the soft hands and the loud voice, and the whole world wanted to see what would happen when they met in a final.
The match lasted five sets, and it was decided, in the end, by small margins, by a point here and a point there, and by the courage of two men who refused to give in. The fourth set went to a tiebreak, and the tiebreak went on and on, until it reached 18-16 in McEnroe’s favour, a tiebreak that lasted for more than twenty minutes and that included points that are still shown on television today. McEnroe saved match points, and Borg saved set points, and the crowd rose to its feet again and again, not knowing who would win, and not caring, because the tennis was so beautiful that the result seemed to matter less than the play itself. McEnroe won that tiebreak, and he won the fourth set, but Borg won the fifth set, and the match, and the title, and the two men shook hands at the net, exhausted and respectful, knowing that they had played a match that would be remembered for as long as tennis is played.
What makes that match so special is not only the tennis, but the story it told. Borg was the ice man, calm and silent, and McEnroe was the fire man, loud and emotional, and the match was a battle between those two ways of being, played out on the most famous court in the world. The crowd loved them both, and the world loved them both, and the match became a symbol of what sport can be at its best: two great competitors, pushing each other to the very edge, and respecting each other when it was over. McEnroe lost that day, but he won the rematch a year later, and the two finals together are the finest pair of matches in the history of the sport.
My Take:
I think John McEnroe is the most gifted tennis player I have ever seen, and I say that knowing how many great players there have been. His hands were like no one else’s. He could touch the ball so softly that it seemed to fall asleep on the strings, and he could angle it into corners that other players did not know existed. I have watched old films of his matches, and I am still amazed by what he could do with a racket. It was not power. It was art. He played tennis the way a painter paints, with a light touch and a clear eye, and when he was at his best, in 1984, he played the most beautiful tennis that has ever been played. I think that is a gift that comes once in a generation, and I am glad that I got to see it, even if only on film.
But I also have to be honest about the temper, because the temper is the part of his story that everyone remembers, and it is the part that I find hardest to defend. He shouted at umpires, he broke rackets, he swore, and he behaved in ways that would get a child sent off the court today. I understand why he did it: he hated to lose, he hated bad calls, and he felt things very deeply. But I also think it was wrong, and I think it set a bad example, and I think McEnroe himself knows that, because he has said so many times. He has apologised, and he has tried to be better, and I respect him for that, but I cannot pretend that the anger was a good thing. It was a flaw, and it cost him, and it cost the game, because the game spent years talking about his behaviour instead of talking about his genius.
The rivalry with Borg is the part of his career that I love most, because it was a story that the whole world could understand. Borg was ice, and McEnroe was fire, and the two men played matches that are still the finest I have ever seen. The Wimbledon final in 1980, with the tiebreak that went to 18-16, is the greatest match I have ever watched, and I have watched it many times, and it still gives me goosebumps. What I love about that rivalry is that the two men respected each other, even though they were opposites, and that Borg’s calm made McEnroe better, and McEnroe’s fire made Borg better. I think the best rivalries are like that: they do not destroy each other, they complete each other, and the Borg-McEnroe rivalry completed them both.
I also think about the 1984 season, and about the record of 82 wins and only three losses, because that record tells me something about what a human being can do when everything comes together. He was not the strongest player. He was not the fastest. But for one year, he was perfect, and he played tennis that no one else could play. I think about that when I think about my own life, and about the times when everything has come together for me, and I know how rare those times are, and how precious. McEnroe had one perfect year, and he used it well, and I think that is enough. Not every great player gets a perfect year. He got one, and he made it count.
But I also feel sad for McEnroe, because after 1984, the magic faded, and he spent the rest of his career trying to get it back, and he never did. That must have been hard, to know that you have been perfect, and to know that you will never be perfect again. I think about that when I think about aging, and about the way all of us lose something as we get older, whether it is speed, or strength, or a gift that once came easily. McEnroe lost his gift, slowly, and he had to learn to live without it, and that is a lesson that applies to all of us. We all lose something, and we all have to find a new way to live, and McEnroe found a new way, as a commentator, as an artist, and as a father, and I admire him for that.
The doubles career is the part of his story that I think people forget, and I want to remember it, because it shows a different McEnroe: a team player, a friend, a man who could share the court with another person and be happy. His partnership with Peter Fleming was built on trust, and it lasted for years, and it brought him nine Grand Slam titles. I think that tells me that McEnroe was not only an angry man. He was also a loyal man, and a man who could love a teammate, and who could put the team first. The Davis Cup showed the same thing: he played for his country for fifteen years, and he won five times, and he played a six-hour match for his team, a match that would have broken most men. That is not the behaviour of a selfish person. It is the behaviour of a person who cares deeply about belonging.
I also admire his second career as a commentator, because it shows that a person can change, and can grow, and can use their gifts in a new way. He is honest on television, he is funny, and he is not afraid to say what he thinks, and the audiences love him for it. He has become the voice of tennis, and he has done it by being himself, the same self that once argued with umpires, but now a wiser self, a self that has learned from his mistakes. I think that is a hopeful message: that we are not fixed, that we can change, and that the angry young man can become a thoughtful older man, if he is willing to learn.
If I could speak to a young player who has a temper, I would tell them to watch McEnroe, and to learn two things from him. First, learn from his genius, because his hands and his mind were a gift, and his tennis was beautiful, and any young player can learn from watching him. Second, learn from his mistakes, because his temper cost him, and it cost the game, and it is not a thing to copy. Be passionate, yes, but be calm too, because the calm will win you more matches than the anger ever will. McEnroe learned that lesson late, and he paid for it, but he learned it, and he has spent his later years teaching it to others, and I think that is a good use of a life.
In the end, I think John McEnroe will be remembered as a genius, and as a man who could not control his fire, and as a man who learned, in the end, to live with that fire. I will remember the hands, and the tiebreak against Borg, and the perfect season of 1984, and I will also remember the commentator, sitting in the booth at Wimbledon, talking about the game with love and with honesty. That is a full life, and it is a life that was lived loudly, and I think the tennis world is richer for it. He was not perfect, and he never pretended to be, but he was great, and greatness, even with flaws, is worth celebrating.
I also think about his art, because it tells me something about the man that tennis never did. He paints, and he plays music, and he has a gallery, and he finds peace in making things that have nothing to do with winning or losing. I think that is important, because a person who only has one thing in their life, whether it is tennis or anything else, is a person who will be lost when that thing is gone. McEnroe found art, and he found music, and he found a family, and those things saved him when tennis could not. I hope every young athlete finds something else in their life, something that is theirs alone, because the game will end one day, and the art will remain.
One more thought stays with me, and it is about the words “You cannot be serious!”, because those words have followed McEnroe for forty years, and they have become a joke, and a catchphrase, and a part of the language. I think about how strange it must be to have your worst moment become your most famous moment, and to have people shout it at you in the street for the rest of your life. McEnroe has lived with that, and he has laughed about it, and he has even used it himself, and I think that takes a kind of grace. He did not hide from his past. He owned it, and he moved on, and that is the best any of us can do with our mistakes.
And finally, I want to say that I am glad McEnroe is still here, still talking, still painting, still playing, because the tennis world needs his voice. It needs a man who will tell the truth, who will say when a player is not trying hard enough, and who will say when a match is beautiful. It needs a man who has been to the top and who has fallen, and who can speak about both with honesty. McEnroe is that man, and I hope he keeps talking for a long time, because when he stops, the game will be quieter, and it will be poorer for it.
I also think about the 1980 final once more, because it is the match that I would show to anyone who has never watched tennis, to explain why the game matters. It was not about money, and it was not about fame. It was about two men, on a grass court, in the rain and the sun, playing with all their hearts, and refusing to give in. That is what sport is, at its best, and McEnroe and Borg showed it to the world in a single afternoon. I hope that match is never forgotten, and I hope that young players watch it and understand that tennis is not only about winning. It is about the beauty of the contest, and the respect between opponents, and the courage to keep fighting when your body is tired and your mind is telling you to stop.
There is one more lesson in McEnroe’s life that I want to name, and it is about the difference between being angry and being passionate. McEnroe was passionate, and his passion made him great, but his anger made him less than he could have been. Passion is a gift. Anger is a burden. The wise player learns to keep the passion and to let go of the anger, and McEnroe learned that lesson, slowly, over many years. I think all of us have a fire inside us, and the question is whether we let it burn us, or whether we learn to use it to light our way. McEnroe learned to use it, in the end, and that is why I respect him as much as I do.
I also want to say something about his parents, because they raised him to be polite and to work hard, and they must have been shocked by the man he became on the court. I think about how hard it must have been for them to watch their son shout at umpires on television, and to read about him in the newspapers, and to wonder where the polite boy they had raised had gone. But I also think they must have been proud, because the boy they raised became one of the greatest players in the world, and because he never stopped caring, even when the caring looked like anger. Parents do not always understand their children, but they love them anyway, and I think the McEnroe family is a proof of that.
And I want to finish with a thought about genius, because McEnroe was a genius, and genius is a lonely thing. It sets you apart from other people, and it makes you see things that others cannot see, and it makes you feel things that others cannot feel. McEnroe felt the game more deeply than anyone else, and that feeling made him great, and it also made him suffer. I think we should be kind to geniuses, because they carry a weight that the rest of us cannot see, and because they give us beauty that we could not make ourselves. McEnroe gave us beauty, on a tennis court, for many years, and I am grateful for it, and I hope he knows that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is John McEnroe’s most famous quote?
His most famous words are “You cannot be serious!”, shouted at an umpire during Wimbledon in 1981 over a disputed line call, a phrase that became part of popular culture.
How many Grand Slam singles titles did John McEnroe win?
He won seven Grand Slam singles titles: three at Wimbledon in 1981, 1983, and 1984, and four at the US Open in 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1984.
What was John McEnroe’s record in 1984?
In 1984 he won 82 matches and lost only three, one of the greatest single seasons in men’s tennis history, winning Wimbledon and the US Open.
Who was John McEnroe’s greatest rival?
Bjorn Borg was his greatest rival, and the two played each other 14 times, winning seven matches each, including the famous Wimbledon finals of 1980 and 1981.
How many Grand Slam doubles titles did John McEnroe win?
He won nine Grand Slam doubles titles, most of them with his partner Peter Fleming, and he was ranked world No. 1 in doubles as well as in singles.
What does John McEnroe do now?
He works as a television commentator for tennis, paints and exhibits his art, plays music, and takes part in senior tennis events, living in New York with his family.
