Bad News for McEnroe
Blood, Sweat, and Backhands with John, Jimmy, Ilie, Ivan, Bjorn, and Vitas
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Beschreibung des Verlags
A shockingly honest memoir about life on the pro tennis circuit during its golden years by one of McEnroe's and Connors' chief rivals, Bill Scanlon.
In the golden age of tennis, when players were just learning how to become media personalities, men like John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Björn Borg and Ivan Lendl ruled the court. In a tell-all memoir, former top 10 seeded tennis star and chief McEnroe rival, Bill Scanlon, presents an unfettered look at the good old days of tennis when some of the most colorful (and infamous) players in history went head-to-head and the game was changed forever.
Bad News For McEnroe is in part a revelation of the feud between McEnroe and the author that began when they were teenagers, but the essence of this book are the wonderful and surprising on- and off-the-court high jinks of such notable players as Guillermo Vilas, Borg, McEnroe, Ilie Nastase and Connors, all of whom Scanlan played and knew intimately, from locker room fights to on-court breakdowns and blow-ups. A story that could not have come from anyone but a true insider, Scanlon's tale of life on the pro tennis circuit will shock and delight tennis fans everywhere.
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Scanlon, a top 10 ranked tennis player in the 1980s, wrote this book partly as a retort to John McEnroe's 2002 autobiography, You Cannot Be Serious. While he deftly depicts "brat-packers" like Jimmy Connors, Ilie Nastase and, above all, Mac, his attitude toward the successful McEnroe whom he played on numerous occasions might strike some as a severe case of sour grapes. McEnroe's antics were "an act, a contrived tactic of someone who would do anything to escape losing," Scanlon writes. But the book isn't all gripes. Scanlon discusses the impact new technologies had on tennis in the '80s and pays homage to the unsung heroes behind the scenes: the coaches, officials, tournament directors and even sports psychologists who try to keep the players mentally stable. What Scanlon does best, however, is dish. The in-fighting among the athletes is reminiscent of cartoon characters going at it, blowing each other up and coming back in the next episode to start all over. Happily for readers, Scanlon is no reformer, just a not-so-humble former player turned writer.
