Subtlety has never been John McEnroe’s strong suit. Not in his playing days, when he was better known as the SuperBrat, and not now, when he is a respected pundit.
McEnroe just cannot be bothered about politically correctness. Seven years ago, in an interview with the Men’s Journal magazine, the American, who won seven majors during his career, was asked where he thought a player such as Serena Williams, would feature in the men’s ranking, if she played a full season.
“I’d say she’d be around 500th in the world,” McEnroe, now 56, replied. He also said he did not believe 21-time grand slam winner Williams would make it past the third round in the men’s draw at grand slams.
Of course, not everybody agreed with McEnroe, but he was not labelled a sexist yet.
He earned that tag two years later for saying women “shouldn’t be playing as many events as the men” and “you shouldn’t push them to play more than they’re capable of”.
McEnroe made that comment amid a surge of injury-forced withdrawals in 2010, on both the men’s and women’s tours, but did not choose his words carefully. And he has been a bit flippant again.
Appearing on American chat show Jimmy Kimmel Live, McEnroe was asked who he thought would win if he and Williams, 23 years his junior, played a serious match.
“My daughters are over there … I think they’d probably think I’d lose to Serena,” the former world No 1 said. “I believe that I could still take her.”
Then he joked about how Serena has “got a lot to lose by losing to an old fart like myself” and how he also has “got a lot to lose, because if I lose to, God forbid, a woman, then I’m not allowed in any men’s locker room for the next 15 years or possibly the end of my life”.
The joke, of course, has not gone down well. But was he really being a sexist or merely trying to suggest what is at stake for both him and Williams?
“That’s part of why it’s intriguing,” he said, and who would dare deny that?
Two years back, Andy Murray had said he would be up for a match with Williams, because “people would be interested to see the men play against the women, to see how the styles match up”.
“I doubt I’d win a point” against Murray, Williams had said back then, but would she be willing to take on McEnroe now? McEnroe suggested he would play, if the money was good.
Hopefully, someone comes up with such an offer, for this sequel promises to be a much bigger hit than the original.
McEnroe is definitely a better player than Bobby Riggs ever was and, at 56, he is a lot fitter than the male lead of the original “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973.
Riggs was 55 at the time.
Williams is, according to McEnroe himself, the greatest female athlete ever, and a far better tennis player than Margaret Court (who lost 6-2, 6-1 to Riggs in a match that has become known as the Mother’s Day Massacre) and Billie Jean King (who beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3).
Who would not want to watch these two go toe-to-toe? More than 30,000 packed Houston’s Astrodome to watch King run Riggs ragged, and nearly a 100 million watched that match on television.
No tennis match, before or since, has attracted such audiences, but a McEnroe v Williams clash has the potential to break those records.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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