Intimidation Is A Part Of Tennis

By Scoop Malinowski

“You can’t intimidate much physically in tennis but there’s a lot of mental intimidation that goes on.” – Patrick McEnroe

Patrick McEnroe won a Grand Slam in doubles and played in a Grand Slam semifinal in singles. He also played against most of the legends of his era like Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, brother John, Ivan Lendl and others.

He’s been around the block and knows the mind games of elite professional tennis.

In my decades around pro tennis I have heard of a lot of examples of “mental intimidation” as Patrick calls it.

Ivan Lendl would walk around the locker room wearing only socks.

Rafael Nadal would do wind sprints in the locker room before a match.

Andy Roddick would verbally abuse certain opponents who got under his skin (Novak Djokovic, young Kei Nishikori, Vince Spadea, etc.)

Radek Stepanek intentionally bumped into a young Nick Kyrgios at Roland Garros during a changeover break.

Roger Federer allegedly “attacked” a young Djokovic in the locker room according to Novak’s father Srdjan in a Serbian media interview.

Rafael Nadal once called Lorenzo Sonego to the net on Centre Court Wimbledon and gave him a lecture about excessive grunting.

Jimmy Connors was losing to Fritz Buehning in Brussels quarterfinal and began an argument with the chair umpire which provoked Buehning to warn the umpire that Connors was trying to intimidate him. Connors then challenged Buehning to bet on the match, declined and then lost the next two sets and the four proceeding ATP World Tour matches vs Jimbo.

Jimmy Connors once crossed the net vs John McEnroe and confronted him and pointed a finger in his face.

Jan Michael Gambill said before a match vs Marcelo Rios in Indian Wells or Scottsdale, Rios was staring him down from across the players cafeteria.

Thomas Muster once was playing superb as no. 5 seed at US Open 1R vs Tim Henman but was being outplayed. After a frantic point, Muster ended up at net chasing a drop shot which the Brit put away for a winner but Muster’s futile effort to get the drop shot evolved into crossing the net and chasing a shocked Henman out of Ashe Stadium into a corner court entrance.

Who could forget the Venus Williams – Irina Spirlea bump on changeover at US Open on Ashe Stadium?

Roy Emerson once approached Marcelo Rios for a friendly chat in the US Open locker room only to rebuffed by the controversial Chilean introvert who said, “Who the fuck are you?”. Patrick Rafter witnessed the attempted interaction and verbally and physically forced Rios to apologize to Emmo.

These are just a small sampling of anecdotes I was able to obtain over the years of covering the sport. Surely it’s just the tip of the iceberg and there are countless more examples of mental intimidation in tennis.

Andy Roddick · Ivan Lendl · Jimmy Connors · Marcelo Rios · Rafael Nadal

3 comments

<< Eala Is The Star WTA Desperately Needs

Mubadala DC Open Notebook >>