John McEnroe took a reporter to task ahead of the Australian Open after he was reminded of the time he was thrown out of the tournament 34 years ago. The 64-year-old American won seven Grand Slam titles during his illustrious career but only appeared in the Australian Open five times, reaching the semi-finals in 1983.
However, his most notable appearance came in 1990 when he faced underdog Mikael Pernfors in the fourth round in Melbourne. McEnroe was slapped with three code violations during his clash with the Swede and was subsequently disqualified.
The New Yorker is back Down Under this week on media duties for ESPN but during a post-event press conference, a reporter took the opportunity to provide an unwanted reminder of his previous misdemeanour.
The interviewer asked McEnroe and commentary partner Mary Joe Fernandez: “Since you were both great doubles player, it’s an Olympic year, Alcaraz and Nadal may be playing together, which doubles combinations would you be excited to see in the Olympics? We saw some mixed doubles that were pretty cool at United Cup. Also, it’s going to be 35th anniversary of you getting defaulted from the Australian Open next year, John.”
McEnroe replied: “It’s the 34th, isn’t it,” to which the reporter said: “Next year will be the 35th.”
McEnroe said: “Talk about it next year then,” prompting laughing in the room.
Unwilling to let the matter drop, the reporter added: “Do you look at it as one that maybe got away? You had [Yannick] Noah the next round and you never lost to him. You were set up there to go deep.”
McEnroe replied: “Are you trying to rub salt in the wounds?”
The reporter added: “Until Djokovic got kicked out of the US Open, that was the most famous.”
Finally, McEnroe decided to open up on the matter. He said: “I did like my draw, though I had to play [Stefan] Edberg in the semis. That obviously wouldn’t have been a gimme.
“I should have known the rules had changed. I will admit that. I screwed up. The rules changed right before the tournament. That did cost me because I did have a good-looking draw there.
“I don’t want to say thank you for bringing that up (smiling). What was the other part of the question?”
The American’s first warning came after he was punished for unsportsmanlike conduct after intimidating a court-side official. A second quickly followed for racket abuse violation, after he smashed it into the playing surface as his temper raged.
Eventually, he was thrown out of the match, after verbally abusing the match umpire and tournament referee. Reports suggested McEnroe had told a supervisor to ‘go f*** your mother’ in the X-rated rant.
