He boils with rage, spraying rage – and has a feel like a god. Tennis ace John McEnroe behaves on the pitch as one of its best times.

“The ball was out,” yells John McEnroe with hochrotem head and tense body posture. “Clearly the off.” But he can rant and scream as loud as he wants, the decision of the judge is scheduled. And McEnroe reacts as he is his entire tennis career has done: insulted. This is the Champions Cup in Boston a fun event. Old stars are compared, but McEnroe reached the final. His opponent is the best tennis player of all time, Pete Sampras. He is twelve years younger than McEnroe, clear favorite and ultimately won with 7:6 and 6:4. All in the hall of the Boston University had a clearer outcome expected. But McEnroe is playing strongly, has nothing of his extraordinary ball feeling loss – but also nothing of his Rüpel image.

He still just wants to win. But he does everything: race, rack, raunzen. “John has worked on himself high standards and can only lose badly. He shoots from the hip through his mouth,” his father John senior said. As a spokesman Wayne Bryan Hall during the Boston Warmspielens read out his CV, he is from the applause of the audience interrupted. McEnroe, however, underlined in his presentation just his hand. In his hooded shirt, he looks like a thirty-year-olds, many twenty year olds do not have such a body durchtrainierten as he, and his commitment is as a teenager, of his first tournament win.

As a bonus to compete McEnroe, hear rock music. It suits him, McEnroe is the rock star of tennis history. He is also her Rüpel. The now slightly curly gray head, in his career at least as many rackets smashed as trophies. The American sports channel ESPN calls it “Winner and whine” (winner and Quengler). Its zenith, the lefty with the strong “Serve and volley” game from 1979 to 1984. Since he won Wimbledon three times, four times the U.S. Open and is in between for three years, the number one world ranking. He has a total of 77 singles and 78-double title win, only Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl have been successful. His Davis Cup 1987 match against Boris Becker is in the U.S. and Germany as a highlight. Both inspire with their marathon match over six hours. Becker wins and speaks of the “biggest game of his career.”

When he was in 1981 Wimbledon final against Björn Borg wins and five-year winning streak of Sweden in the traditional tournament ended, he waived at the gala dinner. The traditional English hosts are, of course “not amused” – and downright shocked when she heard McEnroe justification: “I wanted the evening with my family, friends and people who have supported me to spend, and not with a series of STOCKSTEIFE 70 — and 80-year olds who tell me that I am on the pitch to behave like a fool. ” Already before the Wuschelkopf with the distinctive red headband at the Royal Tennis Club unpleasant noticed when he was there the famous strawberries and cream with the hand and not with the silver spoons for this purpose is.
John McEnroe in his “Prime Time” as number one at Wimbledon at the beginning of the 80s

John McEnroe in his “Prime Time” as number one at Wimbledon at the beginning of the 80s

McEnroe cleaves the tennis world. Fans love its ambition and will to fight. The same fans hulls but often enough the nose, where “BigMac” with the official port (see the Youtube potpourri of McEnroe tirades). “You’re pathetic, this is the last time that I play a match when you are sitting up there,” screams against it attaches to a referee. “That can not be your seriousness. The ball was clearly on the line. The whole stadium’s view, only you do not,” someone else gets to hear.

In the 1987 U.S. Open cost him $ 17,500 this vulgar penalty and a two-lock. 1990, he worked for the Australian Open even disqualified. “As a child I was a big fan of McEnroe, but my parents have banned me, him as a model to take,” says the former first-world Jim Courier.

“He is only on the pitch so fiercely, privately, it can be very friendly,” says Pete Axthelm of Newsweek. The private man McEnroe likes to play guitar, in New York has an art gallery, five children and lives in second marriage with the singer Patty Smyth. On his 50th today Birthday wishes he did not need to be addressed. “Remind me not only that. 50, it sounds so much older than 49″, he says after the awards ceremony in Boston. As McEnroe left the hall, the audience rise from their seats and applaud. You get exactly what they expected of him have strong tennis and strong exchange of words.