You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe;James Kaplan Page B

fever against Larry Gottfried, now of Trinity, but—excuses, excuses! In fact, the pressure of expectations for me as the number-one player provided great preparation for the pros.
     
     
     
    I T WASN’T UNTIL W IMBLEDON in ’77 that I felt strong enough to serve-and-volley. I had grown in height (maybe I was starting to stand up straighter) and weight; my leg strength was becoming an asset. My serve didn’t get me a lot of aces, but I could place the ball well enough to finish up with one volley, or two or three—as many as it took.
    That was when it all came together for the first time. My style of play was very high-percentage—short backswings, no wasted energy, no unnecessary chances. I believed that my quickness and anticipation and hand-eye coordination were better than any baseline player’s—that, playing my style against theirs, I could win.
    My serve-and-volley game developed even further when I went to Stanford, because, for the first time in my life, I was playing nothing but hard-court tennis. Suddenly I just saw that serve-and-volley was the better way to play. A few of you may still recall tennis as it used to be during the clay-court mid-’70s: Remember Vilas, during his incredible run in ’77, playing those withering, interminable rallies? I thought that just wasn’t particularly interesting. As soon as I found I had the capability to move right in and end those points, I thought, “Clay-court tennis is for the birds—this is a better way to make a living.”
    The fact that I was a good volleyer had often been wasted on clay. Wimbledon was something different. Borg wasn’t a great volleyer, yet he won Wimbledon five times in a row. On grass, a mis-hit off the frame or the edge of the strings could turn into a surprisingly effective drop-volley, so my theory became: Get close to the net!
    But I really could volley, which was good for me at Wimbledon and very good for me on those fast hard courts at Stanford. A solid, good volley on a hard court is even more critical than on a grass court. The problem was, those hard courts weren’t especially good for my body: Freshman year at college was when I started to get some back problems.
    It was in the lower part of my back. Maybe it was just stiffness from not stretching enough; maybe there was some emotional tension, too—most of the time, I’ve found, that has something to do with back pain. I know I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, because, well before school ended, I was certain that I was going to turn pro (I also played four pro tournaments that year—still as an amateur—and raised my ranking from 21 to 18), and I felt in my gut that the only way to go out on a positive note was to win the NCAA’s, in Athens, Georgia, in May.
    Winning that tournament meant a lot to me. To my knowledge, few people had done poorly in their big matches in the juniors or college and then turned around and had fabulous pro careers. Eliot Teltscher was an exception—he lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament, and later reached the top ten—but I didn’t want to go out that way. I was the number-one college player and our team was undefeated. I wanted to win this thing and go out with a bang. Anything else would have been lame.
    I played a lot of tennis during that tournament. It was a nine-day event, four days for team competition, then five days for individual matches. Over the first four days, I played four singles and four doubles matches, and then over the next five days, six singles and four more doubles matches.
    My semifinal in the individual competition, against my friend and doubles partner Bill Maze, stirred up some mixed feelings—and fore-shadowed issues that would later crop up between Peter Fleming and me. I wanted this one very badly, and despite my friendship with Bill, I went into the match in a take-no-prisoners, win-at-any-costs state of mind. There were several close calls against me, and I’d give Bill a look: Tennis