Read Online You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe;James Kaplan - Free Book Online Page B
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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out onto a court where Vilas was hitting with his manager, the crazed former Romanian Davis Cupper Ion Tiriac, and asked if I could warm up with them for five minutes. Five minutes was all I ever needed right before a match. For years afterward, however, both Vilas and Tiriac loved to tell the story about the cocky young McEnroe, annoyed that they were on the court at all, demanding to hit with the great Vilas.
Maybe, deep down, I was a little starstruck by Vilas in his greatest year. But even if I did still look like a kid, I was a lot more than a fan.
This time, I took Nastase to three sets.
In May, after Stanford accepted me for the coming fall, the United States Tennis Association gave me $500 and a plane ticket, said “Good luck,” and I went off to play the French and Wimbledon Juniors. Since I had a couple of ATP points, I was also going to try to qualify for the main draws, and I planned to meet up with Stacy, who would be playing the juniors in the French.
Soon after I checked in to the players’ hotel, the Sofitel, I did a double-take: Somehow I had failed to realize that my hotel bill wasn’t going to be taken care of by the USTA, but by yours truly, J.P.M., Jr. That five hundred bucks had seemed like a lot of money…until I checked in. Now I did some quick calculations: The players’ rate was around thirty dollars a night, and I was going to be in Paris for the three days of the qualifiers, and, whether I qualified or not, the fourteen days until the end of the junior tournament. After that came two weeks before Wimbledon, then two weeks at Wimbledon…five hundred bucks for seven weeks wasn’t exactly going to cut it!
But before I could think about money, I had to play tennis.
In my head, I kept hearing what my Port Washington buddy Vitas Gerulaitis had told me before I came over: “Here’s what’s going to happen on your first trip to the French—you’re going to play some guy from Europe that you’ve never heard of, and you’re going to get your ass kicked.”
Thank you, Vitas. Sure enough, the first round in the qualies put me up against someone named Robert Machan, a stiff from Hungary—or so I thought. Before I knew what was happening, the stiff was indeed kicking my ass, 6–3, 2–0. Then it suddenly dawned on me: I was hitting every ball to his backhand. That’s common when you don’t know someone’s game. Out of desperation, I started hitting the ball to his forehand—and, lo and behold, Mr. Machan could not hit a forehand to save his life.
On to the second round.
M Y BIGGEST DISCOVERY about tennis so far was that things seemed to get a whole lot more exciting as I went up the ladder. Paris in ’77 was my first real taste of the big time, and I’d never seen guys work so hard. I’ll never forget watching an American named Norman Holmes playing someone who was the French version of Norman Holmes, in the second round of the qualifiers. It was incredible how hard they were going at it—hustling and diving onto the court until their whites were completely covered with red clay. Maybe all of a hundred people were watching, but it was one of the all-time best matches I’ve ever seen.
Norman Holmes won the match, qualified, and eventually rose to around 100 in the world. He wasn’t a world-beater that afternoon, but that wasn’t the point. Watching him made me think, “If this guy can try that hard, there’s no reason why I can’t.”
Who knew how far I could go if I pulled out all the stops?
I WON MY SECOND-ROUND qualifying match. All the while, though, I kept thinking, I’ve got to find a cheaper hotel. I knew a player named Lucia Romanova, one of the tennis-playing Romanov twins from Romania, who spoke some French, and I asked her if she could help me.
God bless her, she went all-out and found a hotel for about three bucks a night. The amenities were roughly what you’d expect, but was it too much to ask that the room have an alarm clock, and
Maybe, deep down, I was a little starstruck by Vilas in his greatest year. But even if I did still look like a kid, I was a lot more than a fan.
This time, I took Nastase to three sets.
In May, after Stanford accepted me for the coming fall, the United States Tennis Association gave me $500 and a plane ticket, said “Good luck,” and I went off to play the French and Wimbledon Juniors. Since I had a couple of ATP points, I was also going to try to qualify for the main draws, and I planned to meet up with Stacy, who would be playing the juniors in the French.
Soon after I checked in to the players’ hotel, the Sofitel, I did a double-take: Somehow I had failed to realize that my hotel bill wasn’t going to be taken care of by the USTA, but by yours truly, J.P.M., Jr. That five hundred bucks had seemed like a lot of money…until I checked in. Now I did some quick calculations: The players’ rate was around thirty dollars a night, and I was going to be in Paris for the three days of the qualifiers, and, whether I qualified or not, the fourteen days until the end of the junior tournament. After that came two weeks before Wimbledon, then two weeks at Wimbledon…five hundred bucks for seven weeks wasn’t exactly going to cut it!
But before I could think about money, I had to play tennis.
In my head, I kept hearing what my Port Washington buddy Vitas Gerulaitis had told me before I came over: “Here’s what’s going to happen on your first trip to the French—you’re going to play some guy from Europe that you’ve never heard of, and you’re going to get your ass kicked.”
Thank you, Vitas. Sure enough, the first round in the qualies put me up against someone named Robert Machan, a stiff from Hungary—or so I thought. Before I knew what was happening, the stiff was indeed kicking my ass, 6–3, 2–0. Then it suddenly dawned on me: I was hitting every ball to his backhand. That’s common when you don’t know someone’s game. Out of desperation, I started hitting the ball to his forehand—and, lo and behold, Mr. Machan could not hit a forehand to save his life.
On to the second round.
M Y BIGGEST DISCOVERY about tennis so far was that things seemed to get a whole lot more exciting as I went up the ladder. Paris in ’77 was my first real taste of the big time, and I’d never seen guys work so hard. I’ll never forget watching an American named Norman Holmes playing someone who was the French version of Norman Holmes, in the second round of the qualifiers. It was incredible how hard they were going at it—hustling and diving onto the court until their whites were completely covered with red clay. Maybe all of a hundred people were watching, but it was one of the all-time best matches I’ve ever seen.
Norman Holmes won the match, qualified, and eventually rose to around 100 in the world. He wasn’t a world-beater that afternoon, but that wasn’t the point. Watching him made me think, “If this guy can try that hard, there’s no reason why I can’t.”
Who knew how far I could go if I pulled out all the stops?
I WON MY SECOND-ROUND qualifying match. All the while, though, I kept thinking, I’ve got to find a cheaper hotel. I knew a player named Lucia Romanova, one of the tennis-playing Romanov twins from Romania, who spoke some French, and I asked her if she could help me.
God bless her, she went all-out and found a hotel for about three bucks a night. The amenities were roughly what you’d expect, but was it too much to ask that the room have an alarm clock, and
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