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John McEnroe was an all-time great on the tennis court, but he has shown yet again that research is far from his forte off it.
McEnroe was in the booth for Alex de Minaur’s third-round clash with Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli at the Australian Open on Friday night.
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De Minaur has emerged as a major hope for local fans after his giant-killing lead-up to the year’s opening grand slam and surge into the world’s top 10 rankings.
The Sydneysider beat both Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, first and second in the rankings respectively, to ignite hopes of a home Australian Open triumph on the men’s side.
Sadly, it seems, McEnroe hadn’t been paying attention.
It took an impressive point, when De Minaur broke serve for a 5-3 lead in the first set, for the 64-year-old American to finally catch up to the Aussie’s undeniable improvement.
“I can see why De Minaur got to 10 in the world now, the way he covered that point,” McEnroe said.
“Cobolli needs to start mixing it up.”
Nice of you to catch up to the rest of the tennis world, John.
In another “Grandpa Simpson” moment, McEnroe seemed perplexed over De Minaur’s nickname of the Demon.
De Minaur. Demon.
But McEnroe had other ideas.
“Why is his nickname Demon? Obviously because of his speed?” McEnroe asked.
Err, no John.
“Well, his name is ‘De … Min,” Todd Woodbridge replied, incredibly respectfully.
It continues a difficult time behind the microphone for McEnroe of late.
A seven-time grand slam champion and one of the sport’s greats, he is extremely popular among many and has brought plenty of colour to the booth.
But McEnroe’s apparent lack of interest in researching players he is about to call has irked more than a few people.
He has been on duty for both ESPN and Channel 9 at the Open and his efforts early on the second day of action at Melbourne Park raised more than a few eyebrows.
Commentating the match between seventh seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and lucky loser Zizou Bergs alongside Aussie Nick Kyrgios for ESPN, McEnroe admitted he didn’t know anything about Bergs.
The 24-year-old Belgian is ranked 129 in the world, having previously sat at a high of 112.
Bergs was making his third start in a grand slam and second at Melbourne Park and put his best foot forward, claiming the first set before the Greek star changed gears, ultimately winning 5-7 6-1 6-1 6-3.
But it was the former notorious hothead McEnroe who had tongues wagging after seemingly knowing nothing about the Belgian, despite it being part of his job.
World No. 316, American Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, was among those taking aim at McEnroe.
“Insane to me that time and time again J. McEnroe goes on air and just admits he has zero clue who a player is. (Today, bergs, 120 atp) just says to the world, hey guys, I’ve done zero research for my job and I’m just going to disrespect someone who’s top 150 in the world at a job,” he tweeted.
The 28-year-old was greeted with plenty of support from other tennis people.
Tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg unloaded on McEnroe, writing: “It’s not only disrespectful to the players, it’s disrespectful to the audience at home to be that unprepared, especially when given plenty of time to prep and a whole production crew ready to get you up to speed.”
Tennis broadcaster Bryan Fenley commented: “As a commentator on the #ATP Challenger Circuit, I can honestly tell you that every night before calling matches, I’m up until 2-3 AM doing prep work. Showing up to work studied and well-researched is a sign of respect to the players, which they deserve.”
It hasn’t been the first time McEnroe has copped criticism for not knowing professional players.
At Wimbledon last year, recently retired Aussie star John Millman savaged McEnroe for not knowing who then-28th seed Nicolas Jarry was.
“How a commentator can say ‘we don’t know Jarry but we’ll get to know him’ is beyond ridiculous. 87 million people play tennis worldwide and this guy is the 28th best at it currently,” Millman tweeted.
During Friday night’s match, McEnroe also seemed reluctant to use Italian Cobolli’s name.
“This guy is still swinging away, that’s for sure,” he said. “He’s just going for broke and for now it’s paying off.”
We’re not saying McEnroe didn’t know his name … but we’re also not, not saying that.
Originally published as John McEnroe got himself all tied up watching Alex de Minaur
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