Even as a younger tennis fan, I miss John McEnroe's antics. Every one is so nice all the time. Roger Federer, one of, if not thee, greatest player to ever play tennis, LOVES his main rival, Rafael Nadal. YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! Whether or not Federer and Nadal are putting on a front to make tennis look better is beyond us, but you have to think in the deepest, darkest part of their heart, they hate each other. I'm all for civilized, sportsmanlike play, but don't pretend to like a guy who has single handedly taken at least 6 majors from you. SHOW IT.
When Serena Williams went a little psycho at the U.S. Open this year, she was chastized everywhere, including Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. If this were 1981, and she were a man, she would have been applauded. Tennis has become too much like the amateur days. New tennis fans are so used to everything in today's society being censored, that when a person goes a little crazy on an ump, like the days of Johnny Mac, Bill Tilden, and Jimmy Connors, people get all guarded like they witnessed some war atrocity.
Andy Roddick gets continually booed when he questions the ump, although, he's wrong a lot of the time, and mostly just mad because he can't play at the level he used to.
When is the last time you played tennis for 2, 3, 4 sets? Didn't you start getting upset the more and more you missed? Numerous times I've thrown hats, racquets, and in one case, my shoes at the ground, let alone scream obscenities at the top of my lungs when my over-hit forehand goes long for the umpteenth time. Roger Federer threw his racquet at the ground and broke it at Miami a couple years back, and everyone was in a frenzy. Sometimes it just feels better to break something, plus he gets those things for free. If Marat Safin or Mikhail Youzhny were just pedestrian players (Youzhny has been playing like one lately), they would be broke from the amount of racquets they've broken.
I mostly blame the invention of HawkEye for our loss of madmen on the tennis courts. The review system, as cool as it is, leaves little room for players to argue calls, thus ending any discussion that could have happened from a missed call.
Tennis needs a madman to bring us back to the (in)saner times of the recent past. Now that the open era has been around for nearly 44 years, it seems like our current pros are content with making the game the way it was before it became open in 1968.
I'm not saying we need a snot-nosed, little weasel running around fake arguing about some call that was clearly on the line, what I'm saying is we need people who would go to war with each other if you gave them a gun and some bullets. Two guys who have nothing nice to say about the other's mother, no matter how great she may, or may not be. Two men who just don't mind grinding out 5-set matches in 130º Australian weather. That's what we need. Give us a rivalry like John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, because they HATED each other. I'll take Federer-Nadal-Djokovic for now, but i want the next big three to hate each other.
I'll leave you with this video of the hatred between McEnroe and Connors:
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