"There were fights going on off the ball, below-the-belt shots and everything There's no outlet in tennis. There should be punchbags at the side of the court if we get uptight."As on the previous three days of the tournament, some of the tennis was excellent, although McEnroe had played better. Leconte, at 34, is barely old enough to qualify for the senior tour. That's the beauty of it!"Leconte got in on the act during the tie-break, bumping into McEnroe when they met at the net at the change-over.That amused the American, who had spent part of Saturday agog at some of the antics while watching England play the All Blacks on television "Those rugby guys are crazy," he said.
McEnroe, 38, had played himself into fitness form after missing six weeks of practice after injuring a foot.The crowd loved every minute of it, and could not have hoped for a better warm-up to the main event than the cabaret provided by Mansour Bahrami, the mustachioed showman of the invitation doubles event. "The rules allow for three minutes after the toss-up for the champion's tie-break, so I had time to bullshit."But how serious was his challenge to umpire Craven? "I slid into this contractual mode," McEnroe said, alluding to his regular joke that he is to obliged to break two rackets and abuse the umpire every time he plays on the senior tour."The umpire was giving me the run-around He asked me if this was part of the contract package I said, `Let's take it outside' No one can be sure if I was serious. When I came down to the net he gave me a lot of eyeball and said, `You've got that look in your eye, should we settle it afterwards?' You sometimes don't know how serious he is."After Leconte had won the toss and elected to serve the first point of the shoot-out, McEnroe walked to the back of the court and had a lengthy talk with the centre line judge "I had a philosophical discussion," McEnroe said. I was happy to let my racket do the talking, but people were yelling at me to get mad and stuff. I'm a good actor."He seized the opportunity after Leconte shouted "It's in!" after lobbing the ball towards the ceiling.
"Is he allowed to talk?" McEnroe said to the umpire, Kim Craven, who responded by saying if he had thought there had been a distraction he would have said so.McEnroe was not impressed, and expressed himself more forcibly when the umpire failed to overrule a line call after the American believed he had hit an ace down the centre line at 15-30 in the concluding game of the second set. McEnroe received a code violation for verbal abuse.McEnroe took the matter up with Craven when the umpire lowered his hydraulic chair to conduct the toss-up before the start of the "champions' tie-break" (decided by the first to win 10 points)."There were about five effings when I came down to the court," Craven said, "but I gave McEnroe the code violation for saying to me, `You're full of shit'. Replacements: F Smith (Griqualand West) for de Beer, 35; J Swart (Western Province) for Small, 71; W Meyer (Free State) for du Randt, 71.Referee: P Thomas (France).. John McEnroe won the inaugural Honda Challenge ATP Senior Tour event at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday.
The New Yorker beat Henri Leconte 6-2, 3-6, 10-5, in the final, winning $50,000 He also invited the umpire to step outside. Could he be serious? John Roberts reports Henri Leconte's wife is a bullfighter, so one would expect the French charmer to be well prepared to tackle John McEnroe even if he was not accustomed to the New Yorker's head-down charges at authority. Leconte played McEnroe 10 times in their days on the regular tour, and lost every one, the American's face going through various shades, from freckled white to purple, in the process.Yesterday's meeting in the final of the Honda Challenge at the Royal Albert Hall went through a gamut of scenes - serious, semi-serious and downright light-hearted - with McEnroe leaving everyone, except his opponent, in a state of confusion.Umpires and line judges have worked in dread of McEnroe ever since he first emerged as a talented 17-year-old tearaway at Wimbledon in 1977 but McEnroe gave the game away after defeating Leconte, 6-2, 3-6, 10-5, when he admitted that he was "serious about the tennis, but the other part is iffy You do get caught up in things. South Africa: Tries Montgomery 2, Erasmus, Small 2, Rossouw, Teichmann, Venter, Snyman, Smith. Conversions De Beer, Montgomery 8.SCOTLAND: R Shepherd (Melrose); C Joiner (Leicester), A Stanger (Hawick), C Chalmers (Melrose), D Stark (Glasgow); G Townsend (Northampton), A Nicol (Bath); D Hilton (Bath), G Bulloch (West of Scotland), M Stewart (Northampton), S Campbell (Dundee), S Murray (Bedford), R Wainwright (Watsonians, capt), E Peters (Bath), I Smith (Moseley). Replacements: D Hodge (Watsonians) for Chalmers, 51; G Armstrong (Newcastle) for Nicol, 63; P Walton (Newcastle) for Peters, 71; G Graham (Newcastle) for Hilton, 71.SOUTH AFRICA: P Montgomery (Western Province); J Small (Western Province), A Snyman (Blue Bulls), R Muir (Western Province), P Rossouw (Western Province); J de Beer (Free State), W Swanepoel (Free State); P du Randt (Free State), J Dalton (Gauteng Lions), A Garvey (Natal), K Otto (Blue Bulls), M Andrews (Natal), J Erasmus (Free State), G Teichmann (Natal), A Ventner (Free State). It might take more than a postcard.Scotland: Try Stark; Conversion Shepherd; Penalty Shepherd. Against Australia a fortnight ago and South Africa on Saturday, the combined score was Scotland 18 Southern Hemisphere 108 - or two tries to 15.It will take more than the return of three Lions - Alan Tait, Doddie Weir and Tom Smith - to make significant inroads into that telling gap.
"We know we have problems," Richie Dixon, Scotland's coach, acknowledged.As to the question of solving them, answers please to the Scottish Rugby Union, Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh. Thus concluded a record-breaking year for Scottish rugby: five record defeats and one record win (against Ireland) in six matches in 1997.Of particular concern is how the flower of Scotland has wilted in the heat of pre-Christmas battle against opposition from another rugby world. We'll not know where we really stand until we play them in next year's Tri-Nations."In the meantime, Mallett's men stand proudly ahead of the infamous 1951 Springboks in the hallowed halls of South African rugby fame. The Boks of '51 were responsible for inflicting Scotland's record losing margin in that 44-0 Murrayfield romp and for running a record number of tries past the Scots, nine.Those particular milestone achievements were consigned to the historical dustbin on Saturday, together with the record points tally Scotland conceded in their 51-15 crushing by the 1993 All Black machine at Murrayfield four years ago. Not that Mallett claims to be entirely convinced."To score a record 52 points at Parc des Princes, 29 at Twickenham, another record, and then 68 here is just fantastic," the Oxford Blue said. "But we've yet to play the other best teams, New Zealand and Australia. He also provided silver-platter service for Andre Venter and James Small, who duly devoured Danie Gerber's Springbok record with his second score and was involved in a further four of his team's 10 touchdowns.Stunned though he was at the final whistle, Wainwright could only shake his head in admiration of the 23-year-old.