Tennis great John McEnroe rested up while his Champions Cup opponents played golf Friday afternoon at the Alotian Club in Roland.
The decision paid off for the seven-time Grand Slam champion that night during a 6-3 semifinal victory over Mark Philippoussis, but the 56-year-old McEnroe ran out of gas in the final against a player 24 years younger, losing 6-3 to to Andy Roddick in front of 2,879 at the Jack Stephens Center on the UALR campus in Little Rock.
McEnroe, Roddick, Philippoussis and Jim Courier turned back the clock during the latest stop on the PowerShares Series, a 12-city circuit that pits champion tennis players 30 and older against one another one-set matches, but nobody has been more dominant during the 2015 series than Roddick.
Roddick, 32, has won five of the six events this season -- which includes 10 consecutive victories -- and McEnroe is on record as saying he believes Roddick could still be a top-15 player in the world today if he were still on the ATP Tour.
"It feels really good when you get spotted 15 years," said Roddick, who retired from the ATP Tour in 2012 after winning 32 titles and was the youngest participant in Friday's event. "I know I can still play a little bit. I just hope I can play as well as they do in 10 to 15 years."
Courier, 44, made Roddick work for his spot in Friday night's final. A four-time Grand Slam champion, Courier kept Roddick on the move from baseline to baseline and stopped the Texan in his tracks with some deft drop shots before Roddick's power game took over in a 6-2 victory.
"I got off to fast starts both times," said Roddick, the last North American player to be ranked No. 1 and the last to win a Grand Slam event (2003 U.S. Open). "To come out and play Jim and then Mac, it's never lost on me. It still amazes me every time I play against John. You'll never see a 56-year-old play at the level that John McEnroe plays.
"He's a treasure to tennis."
Roddick jumped out to an early lead in the championship match when McEnroe sent a shot long to make it 2-0, which prompted McEnroe to fire a ball into the rafters and off a UALR volleyball championship banner. Then Roddick reeled off three consecutive aces and a winner on game point to make it 3-0.
McEnroe delighted the crowd, serving a love game to make it 3-1 before tossing his second racket of the night when he fell behind 4-1. The three-time Wimbledon and four-time U.S. Open champion won two of the next three games to pull to within 5-3 before Roddick served out the match.
Included in the final game was a blistering serve by Roddick that made it 40-0 and left McEnroe with hands on hips and drew the loudest oohs and aahs of the night from the crowd.
"I've been doing this on the senior circuit a better part of 20 years," McEnroe said. "It seems I've gotten older and they've gotten younger.
"Last year I was playing the likes of [Ivan] Lendl and [Jimmy] Connors and some other guys closer to my age. Where the hell are those guys when I need them?"
The McEnroe-Philippoussis semifinal featured a combined five challenges from the players. Since no linesmen are used on the PowerShares tour, players are responsible for calling shots. McEnroe, who didn't lose a point serving out the final game, was 2 for 3 on challenges, while Philippoussis missed his two replays that were decided by a digital-tracking system.
Philippoussis, 38, the runner-up to Roger Federer in 2003 at Wimbledon and the runner-up to Patrick Rafter at the 1998 U.S. Open, has the only other PowerShares championship besides Roddick.
It was McEnroe 's third appearance in central Arkansas. He played exhibition matches against Guillermo Vilas in 1983 at Barton Coliseum as part of the John McEnroe Tennis Over America Tour and Pete Sampras in 2007 at Verizon Arena.
He admitted before Friday night's matches that age might finally be catching up with him and that he is looking into other options off the court.
"It is part of why I started a tennis academy," McEnroe said. "It's part of why I commentate. That's why I am looking into doing some things for ESPN. Maybe some other sports. At least seeing what other options are out there.
"I will keep playing the rest of my life, but I can't keep going out like this too much longer against guys who hit the ball this big. The body just doesn't react like it used to."
McEnroe was criticized often during his playing career for volatile outbursts, but he said somewhere along the way a shift occurred where that type of boorish behavior became accepted. Either way, he makes no apologies.
"I think people like personality in a one-on-one sport, and I fit the mode there," he said. "I tried to say it like it is. Sometimes people respected it; other people had problems with it. Sometimes I went overboard. Sometimes I had something legitimate to say. I think it all ended up pretty good in the end.
"These days the things I got in trouble for are the things they want to see. What can you do?"
Sports on 04/18/2015