Tennis great John McEnroe has come under fire for “disrespectful” comments in the opening days of the Australian Open.
McEnroe has returned to Australia for the first time since 2020 and is providing special comments for host broadcaster Nine plus America’s coverage via ESPN.
The famously big-mouthed star has crossed a line according to many observers though with his dismissive commentary about lower-ranked players.
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On commentary for former Australian Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas’ first-round clash with lucky loser Zizou Bergs, McEnroe conceded he knew nothing about Bergs.
“Insane to me that time and time again J. McEnroe goes on air and just admits he has zero clue who a player is,” tennis player Thai-Son Kwiatkowski tweeted.
“Today, (Zizou) Bergs, 120 atp (ranking), 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.”
Bergs was making his second career main draw appearance at a slam, and remains winless at the level, typically playing at the secondary Challenger level.
The Times journalist Stuart Fraser responded and pointed out McEnroe had done the exact same thing to begin his commentary on Nine for Sunday night’s Dino Prizmic vs Novak Djokovic match.
American tennis writer Ben Rothenberg added the problem ran deeper than that.
“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,” he tweeted.
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