"Like a cigarette addiction, I'm just doing it because it's habit" - When John McEnroe was surprised by his own controversial on-court attitude
John McEnroe is a legendary figure in the sport of tennis, having amassed seven Grand Slam titles and topped the ATP Rankings for 170 weeks. However, he is better known for his fiery personality and on-court outbursts than for his achievements.
One such incident that raised many eyebrows worldwide took place during the first round of the 1981 Wimbledon Championships. It was here that McEnroe's now-famous catchphrase, which would transcend the sport, was born.
He was playing against compatriot Tom Gullikson and erupted at chair umpire Edward James for calling a serve out. McEnroe screamed in front of a stunned crowd:
"You can’t be serious, man, you cannot be serious! That ball was on the line, the chalk flew up! It was clearly in, how can you possibly call that out?"
That catchphrase would come to define how the public viewed him. In an old SportsJones interview, John McEnroe likened his persona to a "cigarette addiction"—something he did out of habit, even when he didn't feel that way.
"Like a cigarette addiction," he said. "It's not really what I'm feeling, I'm just doing it because it's the habit. I'd go out on the court and suddenly I'm doing something and I'd be like, 'Why am I doing this?'"
The American added:
"The game was so stiff," he says now, launching into his favorite rant. "It felt like everybody's collar was starched, like the next thing they were going to do was ask me to wear long pants. So if there was one thing I wanted to change that was it. It became like this cause for me."
John McEnroe: "The system stinks... I should have been defaulted"
In a conversation with Pete Bodo, as quoted in Bodo's 1995 book "Courts of Babylon," John McEnroe criticized the system, stating that there were matches where he should have been defaulted, but tournament directors chose not to jeopardize a "big drawing card" like him.
"The system stinks," McEnroe said. "There’ve been matches when my behavior was so outrageous that I should have been defaulted, but I’m such a big drawing card that no tournament director is going to shoot himself in the foot by defaulting me."
"So they came up with this suspension plan that sits you down if you accumulate so many dollars in fines over a given period," he added.
'Superbrat' continued:
"Even then, you don’t get kicked out when you go over the limit but later, and even that can be appealed. The system was there to be manipulated, and a lot of times I played it to the hilt."
"A part of me was always aware of how far I could go and what it might cost me down the line. What I didn’t realize then was how much damage I could do to myself along the way by playing the system," he added.