Watch: John McEnroe pitches a fit at Pickleball Slam
It seems that time does not mellow all things as John McEnroe suffered a classic ‘Superbrat’ meltdown during the Pickleball Slam.
McEnroe had defeated Andre Agassi in singles competition but in the doubles he lost his cool.
Unhappy with himself after a shot, McEnroe had what by his standards, would probably be considered a minor meltdown.
The American isn’t a fan of players containing their emotions on court as he feels it makes the game seem sanitised.
McEnroe shared his thoughts on players having on-court meltdowns in tennis.
When asked ‘why do tennis players have such an explosive temper?’ McEnroe responded: “You must be watching different tournaments than me ‘cuase I don’t see many players having meltdowns at all.
“And I know something about meltdowns, my past experience, and I’ve seen a couple players, obviously Nick Kyrgios comes to mind having meltdowns on a pretty regular basis, but for the most part, tennis players are incredibly well behaved, maybe too well behaved in my book.
“I’d like to see a little bit more explosive temper see the emotions, wear it on their sleeve, there’s a handful of people you see that, but I just saw someone win Wimbledon on the girl’s side who didn’t show any emotion, so I don’t know if any of us wanna see that.”
McEnroe was also asked why player’s break their rackets and whether they should rather just give the racket to a fan.
He managed to avoid breaking his pickleball paddle but there was a sense that the piece of equipment wasn’t long for this world.
The man who has broken a few rackets in his day, doesn’t think that plan would work out but proposed an alternative.
“How about we compromise?
“We break a tennis racket, and then you give it to a fan in the stands, a broken racket, it’s a win, win.
“Is a person in the stands gonna use it [a pro’s tennis racket]?
“I would hope that if you got a racket from Nick Kyrgios in a moment of his frustration that you’d maybe hang it up, put it up somewhere, frame it, not use it.
“I doubt you’d be using, “Oh, I’m hitting with Novak Djokovic’s racket, which he broke in a fit of anger.”
“No, I think you’d have it like a piece of art or something.
“Be happy that maybe you have a racket at all, so we can both be winners.
“Get out the frustration, and you get the racket.”
