John McEnroe

The Full Biography

John McEnroe. Tennis player. Seven-time major singles champion whose left hand was finer than the shout the culture kept.

This is his story.

The image most people still carry is a headband, a red face, and a line flung at a chair umpire on the Centre Court grass. “You cannot be serious!” The year was 1981. The sentence became a climate. What the still cannot show is John Patrick McEnroe Jr., born on a U.S. Air Force base in Wiesbaden, raised in Douglaston, Queens, a serve-and-volley artist who could drop a ball into a teacup, a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, a doubles pile the mouth still under-files, and a living man whose second occupation is telling the truth about a point into a microphone.

He was born on February 16, 1959, in Wiesbaden, West Germany. His father, John Patrick McEnroe Sr., was serving in the Air Force and would become a New York lawyer. His mother, Kay, kept the household that moved, as service households do, and then stopped in Queens. Douglaston is not a country club myth. It is a neighborhood with public courts and a boy who wanted every ball to obey him. He trained at the Port Washington Tennis Academy under Harry Hopman and Tony Palafox. He went to Trinity School in Manhattan. The first pressure was a lefty talent in a city that does not lower its voice, and a father who treated the sport as a profession before the boy was old enough to sign a check.

Stanford University took him for a year. In 1978 he won the NCAA singles title and helped win the team title, then turned professional. The door the public still uses, though, opened a year earlier. In 1977, as an eighteen-year-old amateur and a qualifier, he reached the Wimbledon semifinals. He lost to Jimmy Connors. He had become, for a fortnight, the youngest man to go that deep at the All England Club. The draw is still a syllabus object: a kid from Queens, unseeded in the way that matters, already arguing with the building and already good enough to belong in it.

The first major arrived at home. In 1979, at twenty, he won the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows, beating Vitas Gerulaitis in the final. He won it again in 1980 and 1981, and a fourth time in 1984. Wimbledon fell in 1981, 1983, and 1984. Seven Grand Slam singles titles: three on the London grass, four on the New York hard courts. He was year-end world No. 1. He held the top ranking for 170 weeks. He also piled up seventy-seven ATP singles titles and, with Peter Fleming and other partners, nine Grand Slam doubles crowns — a second career the shout still tries to eat. For a stretch he was No. 1 in singles and doubles at the same time, a feat he shares with Stefan Edberg and almost no one else.

The civic object is not a trophy. It is a rivalry. Björn Borg was ice. McEnroe was the necessary fire. On July 5, 1980, in the Wimbledon final, Borg won 1–6, 7–5, 6–3, 6–7 (16–18), 8–6. The fourth-set tiebreak went eighteen points to sixteen. People who do not keep tennis still know that afternoon. In 1981, on the same lawn, McEnroe beat Borg in four sets. Borg then receded from the majors. They made each other. Connors was the other American argument. Ivan Lendl was the future that would not yield. In 1984 McEnroe went 82–3, the closest thing to a perfect season the Open era had seen, and still lost the French Open final after leading Lendl by two sets. Paris stayed out of the case. He did not pretend otherwise.

You cannot be serious!John McEnroe, Wimbledon, 1981

The champion years sit on a 1978 decision. Stanford had given him a year, an NCAA singles title, and a team title. He turned professional. Harry Hopman’s academy in Port Washington had already taught him that a volley is a sentence you do not finish on the baseline. Tony Palafox had already taught him the lefty slice. Trinity School in Manhattan had already taught him that New York does not lower its voice. The 1979 U.S. Open, at twenty, against Vitas Gerulaitis in the final, is the first major. The 1980 and 1981 Opens are the hold. Wimbledon 1981 is the end of Borg. Wimbledon 1983 and 1984, and the 1984 Open, are the rest of the seven. Paris and Melbourne stayed empty. The Davis Cup pile sits beside the majors. He helped the United States take the cup in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1992 — five titles as a singles and doubles weapon, a week of country that asked him to be a teammate after a year of being an argument. Peter Fleming was the principal doubles partner: four Wimbledon doubles crowns and three U.S. Open doubles titles, a second career the shout still tries to eat. In 1977, still an amateur, he won the French Open mixed doubles with Mary Carillo. In 1992, at Wimbledon, he took a last major doubles title with Michael Stich. Seventy-seven ATP singles titles. Seventy-seven doubles titles. One mixed. He was year-end world No. 1. He held the top ranking for 170 weeks. For a stretch he was No. 1 in singles and doubles at the same time, a feat he shares with Stefan Edberg. The hands were the job. Serve-and-volley is a dying grammar now. In his prime it was a first strike: a wide lefty serve, a first volley that ended the point before the returner had finished the step, a drop that looked like an insult. He could thread a passing shot when he had to, but the net was the parish. Commentators who only keep the shout miss the touch. Players who grew up on baseline rallies still study the short angle. The 82–3 season of 1984 is the closest the Open era has come to a perfect year, and it still has a hole in Paris. That hole is part of the file, not a tragedy to sand off. The civic object remains the rivalry. On July 5, 1980, in the Wimbledon final, Borg won 1–6, 7–5, 6–3, 6–7 (16–18), 8–6. The fourth-set tiebreak went eighteen points to sixteen. In 1981, on the same lawn, McEnroe beat Borg in four sets and ended a five-year Wimbledon reign. Borg then receded from the majors. Connors was the other American argument — Flushing Meadows as a family fight. Lendl was the future that would not yield. In 1984 McEnroe went 82–3, the closest thing to a perfect season the Open era had seen, and still lost the French Open final after leading Lendl by two sets. Paris stayed out of the case. The Australian Open stayed out too. Seven singles majors: three on the London grass, four on the New York hard courts. He did not pretend the missing clay was a footnote. The line was shouted on June 22, 1981, in a first-round match against Tom Gullikson, at chair umpire Edward James. It became grammar. The tennis that fortnight, and for the next three years, was better than the shout. The culture kept the shout. That imbalance is the turn, and it is easy to miss because the clip is funnier than a backhand volley. A lot of champions become residencies of their own highlights. McEnroe became a man who would spend the rest of a public life living inside one sentence while still being, at net, the standard for touch. He has also said he would let the racket do the talking. The racket did. The sentence did more of the talking than he intended.

He married the actress Tatum O’Neal in 1986. They had three children, Kevin, Sean, and Emily. The marriage ended. In 1997 he married the rock singer Patty Smyth. They have two daughters, Anna and Ava; Smyth’s daughter Ruby is part of the household. Friends from the tour describe a man who could be impossible at a chair and generous in a locker room after the point was dead. The children have had to share a father who is also a line of dialogue strangers shout in airports. Both the generosity and the impossibility are the life.

The later years

He stopped playing regular singles in 1992. The last major doubles title, with Stich at Wimbledon that July, is a cleaner last line than the shout. The International Tennis Hall of Fame took him in 1999, in the first year he was eligible. He did not disappear into senior exhibitions, though he has played them, and still can put a volley where a younger man cannot. The Champions Tour and charity nights kept the left hand in public. The real second job is the booth. NBC. ESPN. The BBC at Wimbledon. He calls a miss as if it were a moral event and a great shot as if he were still slightly offended that someone else hit it. The manners argument never closed. He has not asked it to.

The memoir You Cannot Be Serious (2002) told Wiesbaden, Douglaston, Stanford, the 1980 tiebreak, and the sentence he could not take back. He collected modern art and treated a gallery the way he treated a net cord: with an opinion. The John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randall’s Island put his name on a set of courts for kids who would never be asked to defend a call on Centre Court. He married Patty Smyth in 1997. Anna and Ava arrived. Ruby, Smyth’s daughter, is part of the household. Kevin, Sean, and Emily, from the years with Tatum O’Neal, have had to share a father who is also a line of dialogue strangers shout in airports. Friends from the tour still describe a man who could be impossible at a chair and generous in a locker room after the point was dead.

He is in his sixties. He still works June and September as weather. Douglaston is still the origin story. The All England Club, which once treated him as a problem, now treats him as a voice the fortnight requires. Interviews gave him chances to recant, which he has done only in pieces, and to double down, which he has also done. What has not receded is the standard at net: the short angle, the soft hand, the first volley that ends a point before the baseline player has finished the sentence. Young players still study the touch. Broadcasters still hire the argument. Both hires are earned.

The booth in June is now a parish appointment. He sits above Centre Court and treats a bad line call as a civic event. The All England Club pays him to be the argument it once tried to silence. That is not irony as a poster. That is a second occupation earned at net. Wiesbaden is the first room. Queens is the house. The 1977 qualifier is the door. The 1980 tiebreak is the civic object. The booth is the parish. What he has done since the ranking points stopped is not a wax museum of a red face. It is the same job he took as a lefty in Douglaston: make the ball obey, tell the truth about a point, leave the room with an argument worth having. He is living. The tennis is the file. The shout is the climate.

After the spotlight moved

It moved to the next loud lefty, then to a generation that grew up with the clip, and then it came back every June when a call was bad and a microphone needed a witness. Borg still arrives in the same sentence. The sentence is the right rivalry. Fleming and the doubles pile are the correction. The booth is the parish. The shout is the climate. The tennis is the file.

He came out of Wiesbaden and Queens, qualified at eighteen, took New York four times and Wimbledon three, argued a line into grammar, lost Paris with the season of his life, and spent the rest of a public life calling balls for people who need the argument. If you only remember the line, you have the still. If you remember Douglaston, Fleming, the 1980 tiebreak, and the booth, you have him.

Portrait: Rob C. Croes / Anefo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

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