The world of tennis has progressed quite a bit since John McEnroe’s glory days in the 1970s and ’80s.
Since 2013, Hawk-Eye has been implemented in the Premier League, at the Masters, the US Open and the ATP Tour Finals. This ultimately makes arguing less prevalent due to the fact that each judge’s decision can be backed up, or proven wrong, via the accuracy of the technology. How would that have impacted McEnroe’s career? He believes it would have made him “boring.”
Back in his heyday, McEnroe was affectionately known as “Superbrat,” making a name for himself by questioning just about everything that he could throughout his matches. While playing in a virtual-reality contest against, well … himself, McEnroe admitted that his old schtick would be pointless in today’s game.
“Honestly, if they’d had Hawk-Eye when I played, I think I probably wouldn’t be sitting here today doing a Michelob ULTRA (time-travel event) because I would’ve been more boring. But I would’ve won more titles.” said the 63-year-old.
Despite believing his career would have been different if the Hawk-Eye technology would have been around during his playing days, McEnroe doesn’t believe it has changed the game.
“It doesn’t seem to have taken away anything from the interaction,” McEnroe told SportTechie. “The crowds seem to like it. They still groan at calls. They’ll still do that even though at certain tournaments now, you can’t even question the call.”
