Read Online You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe;James Kaplan - Free Book Online
Authors: John McEnroe;James Kaplan
Tags: United States, General, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, tennis, Biography, Sports & Recreation, Sports, McEnroe, John, Tennis players, Tennis players - United States
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when I got better and could do a whole lot more on the court —if I ever play this guy again, he’s going to suffer like he’s never suffered before. I’m going to drop-shot him and lob him, just keep him out there and make him look like a bum.
Which is exactly what I did. Unless I did dream it. But I refuse to check the record books, in case it really was a dream.
A S I ENTERED my senior year of high school, I was the number-two junior in the country, but now that Larry Gottfried had moved up out of the category—he would never do as well again—I was the expected number one. My headmaster at Trinity, Robin Lester, was willing to give me a little leeway with my classes and homework so I could travel to a few tournaments. It seemed as if this could be my year.
Accordingly, that fall, I decided to finally try and notch up my conditioning. In addition to my soccer games, I started jogging for the first time in my life, one or two mile-and-a-half laps around the Central Park Reservoir every day after school. It felt like a major distance to this novice runner. It was also unusually cold in New York that autumn—or so it seemed to me. A little cold-weather jogging around the Reservoir, however, wasn’t exactly the best preparation for the incredible heat of the Argentine Open, in Buenos Aires, in the Southern Hemisphere spring of November 1976.
I was playing the junior event, but many of the players were tough, up-and-coming, South American clay-court specialists. I’ll never forget my semifinal match against one of the best of them, José-Luis Clerc, a tall, slim Argentinian who would later become a top-five player and one of my most formidable Davis Cup opponents. I won the match in what sounds like a routine fashion—6–3, 6–4—but thank God it was only two sets, because the sun was so broiling hot that one more would’ve done me in. I spent twenty minutes in the shower after the match, just letting the cold water pour onto my head.
I was in no shape to give my U.S. Open juniors nemesis, Ricardo Ycaza, much of a match in the final. Still, I did have the pleasure of seeing Guillermo Vilas, the fittest guy of them all, win the main tournament. Just looking at him made me realize I would have to work a whole lot harder.
I N D ECEMBER , I had a pair of big victories in Miami, winning the Sunshine Cup against Yannick Noah and Gilles Moretton of France in my last doubles match with Larry Gottfried, and winning the Orange Bowl, beating Eliot Teltscher in the singles final. Even though there were no international junior rankings then, the best foreign players all came to the Orange Bowl, so I was now effectively the top junior in the world. The months to come would confirm my status.
In January, I headed back to South America, traveling to Caracas for the Venezuelan Open Juniors, where my most vivid memory is not of the players I beat in a comparatively weak field, but of the soldiers sticking machine guns in the car window before we drove up the hill to the matches. In the world outside the safe old U.S.A., a lot was going on that I’d never dreamed of.
And then in February, I went to Ocean City, Maryland, for an indoor tournament on the Bill Riordan/Gene Scott tour. Riordan managed Jimmy Connors at the time, and he put together a series of non-ATP events that Gene directed. It was there, on my eighteenth birthday, that I coughed and hacked my way to a 5–7, 4–6 loss to Ilie Nastase.
I had bronchitis, a frequent problem with me until my airways matured. Physically and emotionally, I was still a kid. Being able to play one of tennis’s greats, however, to such a close loss gave me the feeling again that maybe I really could play with the pros. My nineteenth year would more than bear that feeling out.
All this traveling was starting to make me feel very sophisticated, but my first trip to Brazil, for the Banana Bowl in March, convinced me I still had a lot to learn. I flew alone down
Which is exactly what I did. Unless I did dream it. But I refuse to check the record books, in case it really was a dream.
A S I ENTERED my senior year of high school, I was the number-two junior in the country, but now that Larry Gottfried had moved up out of the category—he would never do as well again—I was the expected number one. My headmaster at Trinity, Robin Lester, was willing to give me a little leeway with my classes and homework so I could travel to a few tournaments. It seemed as if this could be my year.
Accordingly, that fall, I decided to finally try and notch up my conditioning. In addition to my soccer games, I started jogging for the first time in my life, one or two mile-and-a-half laps around the Central Park Reservoir every day after school. It felt like a major distance to this novice runner. It was also unusually cold in New York that autumn—or so it seemed to me. A little cold-weather jogging around the Reservoir, however, wasn’t exactly the best preparation for the incredible heat of the Argentine Open, in Buenos Aires, in the Southern Hemisphere spring of November 1976.
I was playing the junior event, but many of the players were tough, up-and-coming, South American clay-court specialists. I’ll never forget my semifinal match against one of the best of them, José-Luis Clerc, a tall, slim Argentinian who would later become a top-five player and one of my most formidable Davis Cup opponents. I won the match in what sounds like a routine fashion—6–3, 6–4—but thank God it was only two sets, because the sun was so broiling hot that one more would’ve done me in. I spent twenty minutes in the shower after the match, just letting the cold water pour onto my head.
I was in no shape to give my U.S. Open juniors nemesis, Ricardo Ycaza, much of a match in the final. Still, I did have the pleasure of seeing Guillermo Vilas, the fittest guy of them all, win the main tournament. Just looking at him made me realize I would have to work a whole lot harder.
I N D ECEMBER , I had a pair of big victories in Miami, winning the Sunshine Cup against Yannick Noah and Gilles Moretton of France in my last doubles match with Larry Gottfried, and winning the Orange Bowl, beating Eliot Teltscher in the singles final. Even though there were no international junior rankings then, the best foreign players all came to the Orange Bowl, so I was now effectively the top junior in the world. The months to come would confirm my status.
In January, I headed back to South America, traveling to Caracas for the Venezuelan Open Juniors, where my most vivid memory is not of the players I beat in a comparatively weak field, but of the soldiers sticking machine guns in the car window before we drove up the hill to the matches. In the world outside the safe old U.S.A., a lot was going on that I’d never dreamed of.
And then in February, I went to Ocean City, Maryland, for an indoor tournament on the Bill Riordan/Gene Scott tour. Riordan managed Jimmy Connors at the time, and he put together a series of non-ATP events that Gene directed. It was there, on my eighteenth birthday, that I coughed and hacked my way to a 5–7, 4–6 loss to Ilie Nastase.
I had bronchitis, a frequent problem with me until my airways matured. Physically and emotionally, I was still a kid. Being able to play one of tennis’s greats, however, to such a close loss gave me the feeling again that maybe I really could play with the pros. My nineteenth year would more than bear that feeling out.
All this traveling was starting to make me feel very sophisticated, but my first trip to Brazil, for the Banana Bowl in March, convinced me I still had a lot to learn. I flew alone down
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