You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe;James Kaplan Page B

me in the semis.) I won the first two rounds of the “qualies”—as I had done the year before, when I’d beaten Tony Parun, Onny’s brother, before being demolished by one Vladimir Zednik.
    This time, I felt more prepared to make a breakthrough. Then, in the third round, I played Zan Guerry.
    Guerry was ranked something like 150 in the world, so it was a big round in more ways than one. It turned out to be a really long, contentious match, clay-court tennis at its worst, or best, whichever way you want to look at it.
    We’d played for three and a half hours—I had lost the first set, 5–7, and won the second one, 7–5—and I was serving at match point, 5–4 in the third set. We got into an extended rally, and finally, when Guerry approached the net, I hit a backhand that shot by him, a winner, right on the line. The umpire (in the qualies there was one umpire on the court, who called both the score and the lines) said, “Game, set, match, McEnroe.” And I thought, U.S. Open! I’m in! I broke into a big grin.
    But Guerry didn’t come up to shake my hand right away. Instead, he went over to the line where my shot had landed. He just stood there looking at the mark, while I waited impatiently to shake hands: I wanted to seal the match, fair and square, and I felt the handshake was a necessity, win or lose. A couple of guys on my Junior Davis Cup team, who’d been there to cheer me on, were calling, “Just walk off the court!” And I was thinking, No, I’m not walking off the court. Not until I shake this guy’s hand. Meanwhile, Guerry was looking for a mark that showed the ball was out.
    A minute went by, which is a long time when you’re waiting for that final handshake. Finally, Guerry said, “No, no, no, that ball was out! This is the mark.” The umpire got off his chair, squatted down, looked at the mark, and said, for the second time, “The ball was in. Game, set, and match, McEnroe.”
    I was thrilled. But now more people on my team were telling me, “Get off the court. Forget the handshake. Something’s bad.” Because Guerry was sort of stalling, still refusing to come up to the net. The commotion grew.
    By now, a few minutes had gone by, they’d called the match for me twice, and—I’ll never forget this—out of nowhere, a woman named Anita Shukow, who happened to be the head referee, came strolling out from behind a fence about 500 feet away. She’d been out of sight of the court, but someone must have heard the uproar and alerted her. She walked over, looked at the mark, and said, “If this is the mark, the ball was out. Deuce.”
    I was about to lose it—I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept saying (mostly to myself), “I’m not playing. Forget it. That’s it. That guy called the match for me twice. This is over, period.” But then, another part of me thought, What if they default me? It’s still deuce; I still could win this. I was just two points away….
    So—of course—I folded completely and lost, 5–7. Now it was time for the floods. I totally fell apart in the locker room, crying and crying—I was so humiliated that this had happened, that this had been taken away from me!
    But—are you ready for this?—there’s a kicker. In the first round of the Open, Guerry came up against an experienced old Aussie pro named Ross Case—his nickname was “Snake”—and the exact same thing happened! Guerry was down 6–5, there was a close call on match point, and he looked for a mark that was out. The difference was: Case walked off the court within ten seconds. It was a lesson I learned the hard way about the differences between the juniors and the pros: When the final score is announced, get off the court.
    I would soon learn a few more lessons.
    It’s funny: I seem to have a memory (and to this day I don’t know if it’s a real memory or not) that I later played Guerry in another tournament. I always said to myself, If I ever play this guy again— especially