Anyone for Tennis? Answer the Question, Jerk

Taking a few bytes out of tennis as the sport gets ready for its final major of the season, the U.S. Open, played of course in The Big Apple. And a few thoughts on John McEnroe.

Does anybody care about tennis anymore? It seems like the sport is losing its audience with each successive year. I don’t hear the buzz about tennis now that I used to hear. I’m sure it’s safe to say that the average sports fan who does not play the sport does not care one bit about watching it on TV unless it is for one of the majors, so let’s focus on the majors. The ratings from a major like the U.S. Open of today are approximately half the households that used to watch in the sport’s early 80’s heyday. That’s like 2 point something million households watching a major now vs. 5 point something million watching it then. Not a good growth trend there.

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But in the majors now, you have three of the greatest men’s players of all time all going head to head to head. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are all amazing players and athletes that could probably go head to head with any players in history and either have held their own, or more likely could have beaten them all. Their problem is they have to face each other to win any majors. Unbelievable that out of the last 43 men’s majors contested over the last 11 years, the winners of 36 out of the 43 majors have ALL been either Fed, Rafa or the Djoker. And the person these greats are usually beating in the final match is… each other. Federer and Nadal are first and second (Nadal tied with Sampras) in all time major victories and they are playing in the same era? Wow!! Though I am not a tennis fan per se, I cannot wait to see who will be in the finals, not to mention who will win the finals every time these greats are playing.

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Women’s tennis is so wide open now that it’s hard to keep track of who is going to win a major anymore. They are coming at this sport from all over the globe. You can pretty much predict that the winner of at least a major or two will be from a Baltic country or a former Soviet state. Kova’s, Lova’s, Pova’s, Sova’s and Tova’s will always be up there in the mix for majors in women’s tennis. Does women’s tennis matter to me as a sports fan? If the final is on and there’s nothing else to do, I’ll watch for a while to see if it’s compelling. If it’s not, I’m off to something else. If it is, it’s usually pretty good theater.

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As good as the big three of men’s tennis are now, there has never been an era quite like the late 70’s – early 80’s. This is primarily because it was the era of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. Not because they were the best, mind you, but because they were the most entertaining. Connors because he seemed to be playing so hard and intensely with his limited skillset, and, while getting the maximum out of his abilities, he became sort of a people’s champion that everyone could relate to, and his efforts provided audiences with great theatrical drama every time he stepped on the court. Sometimes he’d win, sometimes he’d lose. But it would always be entertaining.

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McEnroe? He was basically a creature from another planet. He was the most hated player to ever play the sport (according to some people). To others, he was their favorite player to ever play the sport. In a sport where gentlemanly manners reigned supreme, and the decisions of umpires and linemen were never questioned, McEnroe burst onto the scene at Wimbledon one year as a brash, hot tempered teenager and absolutely turned the sport on its ear. So intense was his approach to the game, so rude and spoiled was his attitude towards the convention of refereeing the game, that he simply blew head gaskets nearly every time a decision seemed to incorrectly go against him. “You must be JOKING!!” he would scream out after a line call was ruled against him. Then, in the same tirade, he would go directly over to the head umpire and berate him for not overruling the linesman, and for not giving McEnroe the satisfaction of his challenge to the dubious ruling being fairly ruled upon. “ANSWER THE QUESTION, JERK!!” In a sport of good manners, he became the iconic poster child for bad manners, and in so doing, he became the most polarizing, but also iconic player the sport had ever seen. He became the must see player of his sport and TV ratings always seemed to follow as half the people (usually conservative traditionalists) lined up to hate him while the other half (non-traditional upstarts, or people who just liked to see potential train wrecks) lined up to cheer him. People could not wait to see what fireworks might happen next.

The McEnroe Effect was that a generation of young, spoiled, cursing racquet-throwing tennis playing kids was spawned. As more and more players dared to question the inaccuracy of certain official’s (human based and sometimes erratic) calls, TV replays seemed to show that the complaining players seemed to indeed have a good point with their questioning of authority. The sport’s dubious quality of officiating was exposed and tennis had to act, or be shown up by the technology of television to be inaccurate and behind the times.

As a result of the McEnroe influence, the sport of tennis has adopted modern technological advances to create an automated system to help settle disputed line calls. The Hawk-Eye camera provides an instant replay system with the capability of showing a digitally produced image of where exactly the ball landed, be it in or out. So they could have technology, and not a human with a bad angle that was even further away from the spot, be the ultimate resolver of the disputed call. So, of all the boorish things McEnroe may have said or done, one good thing that came about was in helping to get the powers that be in tennis to see that they had to change with the times and adopt new technology to finally get things right.

And if John McEnroe came into the sport today, and started ranting and raving about a line call, he would go face to face with a TV monitor that would show a digital picture of the ball actually being in (not out), and he would have to shut up and go back to playing tennis. But, that is because of the fact that John McEnroe, from his own time and era, in his own rude and combative way, actually got the sport of tennis to “ANSWER THE QUESTION.”