The American Tennis ace; John Patrick McEnroe
The former top ranked tennis ace from the United States of America, John Patrick McEnroe, was born on February 16, 1959 in West of Germany. The left handed player grabbed a total of seven single Grand Slam trophies, including four of them at the United States Open championship and the remaining three at the grass court Grand Slam tournament, Wimbledon. Moreover, the American has triumphed in a total of nine Grand Slam men’s double tournaments as well as one Grand Slam mixed double championship. He is still famous for his shot making skills and supreme volleying; for his well known conflicts with Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl as well as none other than Bjorn Borg, for his skirmish on court attitude, which repeatedly left him in hassle with tennis managements as well as umpires and especially for his exclusive tag line, ‘You must be kidding’, pointed towards an umpire during a contest at the All England Club back in 1981.
During the initial stages of his professional career, John was nicknamed as “Slam Burglar” because of his violent playing fashion as well as his remarkable skill to throw the ball using the volley
His elder brother Patrick McEnroe was also a professional tennis ace from the United States of America. He is also the current skipper of the Davis Cup team of USA, a place where John also served earlier. Both the players now also work as commentators for major tennis events in America where as John also commentates on grass court Grand Slam tournament for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Born at the US military base in the north of Germany, John started playing the game of tennis when he was as old as eight years along with his two brothers. His parents registered his name in the Eastern lawn Tennis Association and he there on participated in the regional tennis championships when he was still as old as nine years of age. After some time, John started contesting in national junior championships and joined the Tennis academy at New York by the name of Port Washington Tennis Academy at twelve years of age. He acquired his education from Trinity school and graduated in the year 1977.
John made his international debut in 1976. At the age of eighteen, he earned his first mixed doubles title along with his partner Mary Carillo and then reached the qualifying championship and into the main draw at the grass court Grand Slam tournament, where John was knocked down in the semi final match by Jimmy Connors in a total of four sets. Despite of loosing, John set a record of being the only qualifier to perform so good in a Grand Slam event back in the open era. Later on, McEnroe also triumphed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association singles Championship as well as team titles back in 1978.
He grabbed his first Grand Slam singles trophy at the United States Open back in 1979. John knocked down one of his fine friends Vitas Gerulaitis in the final match at the All England Club and thus became the youngest ever male player to win the title since Pancho Gonzales. He grabbed a total of ten singles along with seventeen doubles titles that season which set a record in the Open era.
John reached his first ever Wimbledon final in 1980 and lost the match to Bjorn Borg in the end. However, just two months later, McEnroe did manage to make up for his loss against Borg by knocking him down in the final match of United States Open in 1980.
The American tennis ace once again triumphed in the next year’s United States Open championship by beating Borg in the final match. Heading on the same lines of success, the 180 cm tall John won a couple of important matches against the top ranked tennis players in the world including Jimmy Connors, Tom Gullikson, Chris Lewis, Paul Mcnamee, apart from his major tournament victories including Wimbledon as well as United States Open title and several Davis Cup victories as well.
The player with an exceptional serving quality in the game of tennis retired back in 1992. However, he is still remembered as one of the top class players in the history of world tennis beyond any measure of speculations.
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