John McEnroe may have been a stellar tennis player, but he will always be best remembered for his on-court screaming matches and meltdowns.

Not unlike Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, who was back in the news for calling an umpire ‘stupid’ over the weekend, but he’s not the tennis legend on the receiving end of a verbal volley from McEnroe.

That would be Margaret Court, the 77-year-old who won 24 major titles, including a Grand Slam in 1970.

Tennis fans will tell you that winning all four majors in the same year deserves all the plaudits, but it’s Court’s post-career antics that have drummed up controversy.

Court was honoured at the Australian Open yesterday, appearing at the Rod Laver Arena before Rafa Nadal’s match with Kyrgios on the 50th anniversary of her extraordinary year, and received a warm round of applause.

A pre-recorded interview with Court played on the big screen, rather than a live interview being conducted, which is probably best when you consider the kind of garbage that usually comes out of her mouth.

As Eurosport’s unofficial ‘Commissioner of Tennis’, where McEnroe talks frankly about issues surrounding the game, he took umbrage with the fact that, in this day and age, we are still honouring somebody with views like Court’s:

Perhaps you didn’t watch all the way through, so here’s the gist via the Telegraph:

“There’s only one thing longer than the list of Margaret Court’s tennis achievements,” said McEnroe…“It’s her list of offensive and homophobic statements.

“Just a few examples. During the apartheid regime in South Africa, she said: ‘I love South Africa. They have the racial situation better organized than anyone else’. What?

About transgender children and LGBTIQ: ‘It’s all the work of the devil… tennis is full of lesbians… it is sad for children to be exposed to homosexuality.’”

John’s on the money – she did say all of those things, and that’s just scratching the surface of the bigoted nonsense she has spewed since wrapping up her career and becoming a Pentecostal minister.

Court currently holds the record for the most single Grand Slam tennis titles with 24, but Serena Williams is hot on her heels with 23.

When John says he would love Serena to win two more, so this hateful bigot can no longer claim that record, he isn’t alone.

What happened back in 2018 is a good reminder of that:

…Court’s great 1960s rival Billie Jean King was invited to the Australian Open to promote a new LGBT-friendly initiative entitled #Open4All, which – according to the press release – was “designed to celebrate the intrinsic fairness and equality of the sport of tennis”.

This turned awkward when King was asked about Court, and replied “I personally don’t think she should have her name [on the stadium] any more. If you were talking about indigenous people, Jews or any other people, I can’t imagine the public would want somebody to have her name on something.”

The Margaret Court Arena forms part of the venue that hosts the Australian Open, and was named after the player back in 2003.

Martina Navratilova is also fed up with Court being honoured in any way, and together with McEnroe, she staged a protest of sorts earlier today.

Here’s the Guardian:

[She] was cut off in mid-sentence when she climbed into an empty umpire’s chair on an outside court here on Tuesday to push for Margaret Court Arena to be renamed in honour of Evonne Goolagong Cawley.

“I’ve been speaking out about an issue for a while now,” the former world No 1 said of her criticism of Court’s homophobia, “and John McEnroe is here to join me and push the conversation forward…”

At that point, the umpire’s microphone goes dead. While there is no evidence Navratilova was deliberately censored, she and McEnroe both made strong statements criticising Court’s controversial views on gender and race…

Her mic may have been cut, deliberately or otherwise, but Navratilova went on to strongly criticise tournament organisers for turning a blind eye to Court’s past statements.

In response, organisers issued a statement criticising the behaviour of Navratilova and McEnroe:

“We embrace diversity, inclusion and the right for people to have a view, as well as their right to voice that view,” the statement said. “But the Australian Open has regulations and protocols with respect to how any fan, player or guest can use our facility, the event and the global stage it provides. This is to ensure the integrity of our event.

“Two high-profile guests have breached these protocols and we are working through this with them.”

McEnroe isn’t the sort to back down, and neither is Navratilova, so we can expect further fireworks.

As for Court – bigots will be bigots, so she’ll probably run her mouth, too.

[sources:telegraph&guardian]