John McEnroe knows a thing or two about outbursts on the court having practically become a meme because of it but he thinks that players should be more excused for the harmless ones.
Novak Djokovic has been the poster boy for outbursts among the big three because the Serbian has had many more than both Nadal and Federer who are incredibly well behaved. They have shown emotions in the past yet Djokovic's outbursts have been much more pronounced and it's put him in a bad light with fans around the world.
McEnroe thinks that emotion is good for sports because it's the most basic reaction to it. If there is no emotion there is no sports. He also agrees that dangerous outbursts should be heavily penalized but throwing a racquet on the ground should be excused.
I don't think anyone would be surprised that's where I stand on that, based on my history, but particularly in a one-on-one game, you need to express yourself. It's not like you're a Manchester City fan or Manchester United fan and you don't care who's on the team. This is different. We're out there by ourselves. I don't defend if you throw a racket and hit somebody, that's a different story. But if you throw it on the ground and it's not going to hit anyone…
Generally, McEnroe feels players are incredibly well behaved and he wasn't like that at all. To him, a young John was more of an average guy that just got annoyed by things on the court. For him, it's abnormal to not show any emotion and also incredibly boring.
But generally, these players are incredibly well-behaved. I'm more like the normal guy that gets frustrated and pissed off when they play. The abnormal guy to me is boring. The guy that never showed any expression. How the hell do you do that? That's far more difficult to do than what I did.
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