The Deft Volleys #1/The S-Thread # 1 For 9/8/12: Enough Is Enough with Patrick McEnroe's Stupid Judgement

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Patrick McEnroe was an underachieving but still Top 30 tennis singles player who sadly could not handle the huge mantle that came with his name thanks to his brother.

Despite that, P-Mac was a more than a respectable doubles player who won a Grand Slam at the French Open and definitely comported himself in a professional and, at times, self-deprecating, manner as a pro. Unfortunately, as a color commentator and especially as a talent coordinator and developer with the USTA, he has done a terrible job.

And that dismal performance has reached its nadir with the explosive story from the intrepid Tom Perrotta revealing the USTA's latest hypocrisy, the obsession over getting world junior #1 Taylor Townsend to lose weight despite being the most successful 16-year-old girl in tennis now.

There are several areas where I am especially irritated with McEnroe on this, and it really was marvelous to see Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport lend their unequivocal and emotional support for Townsend. 

The first area I have a problem with McEnroe on is his obvious hypocrisy. Where in the world was this public treatment and sudden concern about Townsend being fat with Coco Vandeweghe and a few prominent male U.S. tennis players in Taylor Dent and Mardy Fish over the years from McEnroe? Suddenly when a #1 junior who is 16 and black arises, the concern about fat is apparent from P-Mac?

The double standard and lack of consistency is embarrassing from an insider with such an important job as P-Mac has.

The other various areas that really disgusts me with the younger McEnroe's asinine treatment to Townsend is his lack of sympathy, his lack of decorum, and his choice to really just be a weird administrator. He's been a down right New York A-hole (there is a difference between one from NYC and one in general) for lack of a better word to this young prodigy, lacking in having any sense of sagacity.

To deny Townsend, the best junior player in the world, who already has defeated a Top 100 player in Spanish veteran Aranxta Parra Santonja and should have beaten Laura Robson in the next round at the tender age of 15 at last year's Open qualifying, a simple wild card into the US Open is really a move deserving of losing his job (if the world was fully rational and properly functional).

No other federation around the world would EVER deny its top junior at the pinnacle of the junior game a spot into its national championships. And to then make that top junior and Australian Open girls' champion and her family pay to go to tournaments, including the national championships, with their own money is the last unacceptable straw.


McEnroe is a very petty man with people who aren't his close friends or prodigies until you have power, and he was yucking it up as his brother John expressed concern over Donald Young's final struggle out of the top 100 to Roger Federer in the 1st Round here before realizing that Young was not going to lose 0, 0, and 0.

P-Mac is another of the many entitled, elitist idiots that have plagued this country with their myopic viewpoints on life, and they will not learn until they are held accountable for their actions.

I think this is a wonderful paradigm about how as Americans we are the best in the world at screwing up a great thing (though the 2nd Bush Presidency is the clear leader in examples of Yanks cluster----). And yet, despite the screw up, all will be well for someone like Patrick McEnroe because they will still go to their comfortable jobs the next day. Especially if they are powerful, wealthy, incompetent, white, and male.

Patrick McEnroe has certainly screwed up a lot of things in his playing career. But he certainly hasn't screwed anything up like this.

Shuji Kajiyama/Associated Press