By resorting to a questionable and disconcerting tactic, O'Neal had successfully gotten inside his opponent's head and planted some troubling thoughts there: Can you do what it takes to win? Do you really want it as bad as I want it?Īs athletes' memoirs go, ''You Cannot Be Serious,'' written with James Kaplan, is a pretty appealing book. But what the former tennis star is not quite able to see, even all these years later, is that right there on the racquetball court McEnroe himself had been McEnroe'd. He relates the anecdote here, it seems, merely to show the eccentricities of the bizarre Hollywood family he was thrust into when he married O'Neal's daughter, Tatum. This bit of gamesmanship drove McEnroe nuts, and he lost the match.

The problem was that O'Neal kept positioning himself directly in front of McEnroe on every shot, leaving McEnroe with a choice: either he could smash the ball into O'Neal's back, which would mean they'd play the point over but would risk a confrontation, or he'd have to lob it over him, leaving O'Neal with easy put-aways. O'Neal was a good player, and a fitness fanatic on top of it, but McEnroe knew enough about handling a racket This was not an invitation, however, that could be safely turned down, and soon enough they were on the court. They were supposed to be having dinner, and McEnroe, who had played the sport only a few times before, was wearing bluejeans and had no athletic gear to change into. Then, his anger rising, he bawled the words that would stay with him for a lifetime and, for all his wonderful play and myriad achievements, earn him a special niche in the sporting annals.WHILE visiting his future father-in-law, the actor Ryan O'Neal, for one of the first times, John McEnroe found himself challenged to a game of racquetball. His moment came in a first-round match against fellow American Tom Gullikson, who was serving at 15-30 and 1-1 in the first set when a McEnroe shot was called out.Īpproaching the umpire, he said: “Chalk came up all over the place, you can’t be serious man.”

McEnroe already had a reputation and had been labeled “Superbrat” by the British tabloid media for his verbal volleys during his previous Wimbledon appearances. REUTERS/Mike Segarįor players brought up in an era of Hawkeye electronic detection devices, when line-call challenges are enshrined in the rules of the game, it is impossible to understand the furor McEnroe’s outburst caused in the civilized world of tennis. Open winner John McEnroe serves to former two-time Australian Open champion Ivan Lendl during their exhibition match at the BNP Paribas Showdown at Madison Square Garden in New York February 28, 2011.

You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe