Australian Open: McEnroe flirts with coach job: Interest in Shapovalov

Eternal tennis bully John McEnroe, USA’s Davis Cup team boss from September 1999 to November 2000, can imagine a part-time return as a coach and is especially flirting with Canadian Denis Shapovalov.

“He actually reminds me of me, 30 or 40 years ago,”the 58-year-old said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The Australian enfant terrible Nick Kyrgios also appreciates McEnroe:”He is a fine boy. Nick’s got something to get people to the stadium. And he has the great talent to do it, too. However, McEnroe doesn’t want a full-time job as a coach:” I can’t go on tour for 30 weeks. I could make it eight to ten weeks.”

The three-time Wimbledon winner is concerned about the sport, with which he became a world star in the 1980s. McEnroe is predicting a difficult future for the Davis Cup in particular, where he himself had some great moments, and he said to the SZ:”The way the Davis Cup is developing, there is no longer any point in realizing it,”he said to the SZ:”It is becoming less and less important. It looks like it’s only getting life support measures.”

In addition, McEnroe is of the opinion that one should “talk about doubles”:”What does doubles actually bring to tennis? I might split up the tennis tour with their contests. And I played a lot of doubles myself.”

McEnroe does not entirely agree with the movie “Borg vs. McEnroe”, which deals with the legendary rivalry between the American and his Swedish rival at the beginning of the 1980s. McEnroe told the SZ that he was “in no way” involved in the development and emergence of the film:”And that’s why it annoys me. McEnroe is portrayed in the film by US actor Shia LaBeouf, while Björn Borg’s compatriot Sverrir Gudnason took on the role of Björn Borg.