Some of the antipathy stems from McEnroe's playing days when his status as the enfant terrible of tennis turned off many fans. Other people just don't like that he talks too much about himself and not enough about the match on the court.
Love him or hate him though, you can't deny that McEnroe doesn't show deference to the players of today's generation. While some athletes-turned-analysts like to think they played in the halcyon days of their respective sport (ESPN's Joe Morgan was famous for that), McEnroe is never shy about praising current players.
Witness his recent comments about Novak Djokovic's quest to break his record of 42-straight wins to open a tennis season. In them, McEnroe says that Djokovic has it harder than he did back in his day and expresses hope that the Serb will break the mark:
"The competition is much stiffer that it was in my day. The players are fitter and more of them are capable of winning tournaments than you had back in my day. What Djokovic is achieving at the moment is incredible, his confidence is sky-high. [I'd] very much like to see [him break my record]. Almost all of the records I set have been broken, and that's the way it goes in tennis."
There's a bit of a #humblebrag in there but, on the whole, McEnroe shows that even though he's a hothead on the court, he's level-headed off of it.
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