As a film about his life is released, the former bad boy of tennis reflects on how he went from villain to hero
In March 2020, just before the pandemic locked the world down, John McEnroe faced Michael Chang in an exhibition tennis match at Indian Wells in California. As a contest, it was next to meaningless. It was a chance for a nostalgic crowd to squint and remember these players in their heyday, almost 40 years in the rear view. At some point, McEnroe, not contractually obliged but almost, would surely kick off at the umpire or a hapless line judge. Maybe he’d even bust out, “You cannot be serious!” Everyone would go home happy. No one would remember Chang won the match.
No one, that is, except McEnroe. “Michael Chang is a great champion in his own way,” he says more than two years on, of the former French Open winner, 13 years his junior. “But he’s lost something with his body: he used to be a great runner, he wasn’t running. And long story short, I lose to him. I’m like, ‘Argh, that’s it! I can’t even beat him!’”
