Regions Morgan Keegan Championship

The hands, he said, are the last thing to go, and at 53, John McEnroe still has great hands and most of the other skills that once made him the best tennis player in the world.

The man known to the current generation of tennis pros as a television commentator showed he can still play doubles with the best as he and 19-year-old partner Jack Sock beat Sam Querrey and James Blake 7-6, 6-4 in an exhibition match. He was especially sharp in rapid-fire volleying exchanges at the net.

“I play hard,” he said. “This hit-and-giggle stuff is boring. I have more fun going 100 percent.”

Call it hit-and-grin, as Blake and Querrey were obviously holding back. But McEnroe aced Blake several times and served out the match at love, just missing an ace on match point and registering 120 once on the radar gun.

“I think that was the (radar) gun on steroids,” he said doubtfully, claiming his hardest serve ever was 125, and that was decades ago.

What mattered, of course, was that McEnroe filled the stadium on a Monday night when there were no big names playing in the main draw of the Regions Morgan Keegan Championship or the women’s tournament. They came to see a guy who used to make regular appearances on the cover of Sports Illustrated for both his play and his antics. He threw his racquet a couple of times for laughs, threw his shirts into the crowd, and threw compliments to Sock, one of latest crop of young Americans trying to restore the sizzle and glory of tennis in the USA. And a couple of times he urged the crowd, which seemed star struck at first, to make some noise.

McEnroe said he has no interest in reviving his career as a doubles specialist in ATP tournaments after winning so many Grand Slams including the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. He is at an age when he can make more money and have more fun playing singles and doubles exhibitions before crowds that have aged along with him.

How do you top a diving forehand winner on match point in the third set of a championship final?

You don’t. Andy Roddick still says his layout last February was the best shot he has ever hit under the circumstances. Roddick, who is rehabilitating a hamstring injury but is scheduled to play in the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships in Memphis later this month, talked with Memphis reporters by conference call Thursday.

“Listen, there’s probably about 10% skill and 90% luck on that one,” he said. “I used all 90% of that luck. But it was a shot I certainly couldn’t believe at the time.”

It was voted the second best tennis shot of 2011, behind a Novak Djokovic forehand on match point against Roger Federer in the U.S. Open.

“If that’s not the number one shot for the year, I’ll never get it,” Roddick said.

He has played Memphis 12 years in a row, but this year is a little dicey.

“I haven’t hit a ball since Australia. We’ve just been working on different types of treatments trying to get it right. The MRI came back probably not as good as we were hoping. But I’m hoping to be hitting balls for the first time next Monday.”

Roddick said he didn’t watch all of the nearly six-hour Australian Open final last week but was as amazed as any fan by the quality of the tennis between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

“It almost looked like kind of the tennis you see when you play XBOX, where the guys really don’t get tired and they just hit whatever shot they want.”

In a separate call, John McEnroe talked about his upcoming exhibition doubles match in Memphis on February 20th. He’s over 50 but said that’s not that much older than the 30-somethings who dominate the men’s doubles tour.
McEnroe plays for keeps, as anyone who saw his angry outbursts during an exhibition at the Racquet Club a few years ago knows.

“People love tennis in Memphis. There is something about it that’s nice when you’re real close to people where you literally can everything, I mean, as long as they’re not hurling insults at you like I would get — not, of course, from the people of Memphis. Of course not. But they can really hear what I’m saying or what players are saying, and it’s sort of nice to have that sometimes, you know, for some of the players when they’re playing with some of these huge courts. I think Roddick’s only tournament win was there last year. I bet you some of it had to do with the rush from having the crowd close and them appreciating that he’s playing there.”

Playing, yes. Cursing and cutting up, no. Big difference.