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McEnroe tells Murray to keep cool

John McEnroe, with headband and curly hair, was a colourful figure at Wimbledon in the 1970s and 1980s © Getty Images

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Andy Murray has been urged to curb his on-court outbursts by one of tennis' most volatile characters, a certain John McEnroe.

McEnroe's "you cannot be serious?!" outburst at Wimbledon in 1981 has been replayed untold times, while the American blames a loss of composure for his defeat to Ivan Lendl in the French Open final of 1984.

Since his retirement from the game, the seven-time grand slam winner has become an accomplished commentator and he believes Murray - often seen shouting at himself and his support team - must learn to keep his cool if he is the fulfil his potential.

"You look at the yelling and it doesn't take someone like Einstein or Sigmund Freud to realise it isn't helping him," McEnroe told the Guardian. "I know that when you get that pent up and crazed, I can tell you from experience, it can be distracting at times. It cost me the match in the French Open when I lost to Lendl.

"I've never seen him lose it that bad, except at his coaches and the people he's yelling at in his box. That's where he goes off. I don't see it much with umpires. I see it all the time where he just spews nervous energy and you hope that the people he works with or whoever he's directing that at either have thick skin or are well paid - or both.

"In an ideal world, it would be a good idea if he didn't do it. It seems like it hurts him - in my mind, but it's easy for me to be a backseat driver. There are other ways to fire yourself up without having to be on the edge of disaster."

Reflecting on his own brush with Wimbledon authority in his first-round clash with Tom Gullikson in 1981, McEnroe - who went on to beat Bjorn Borg in that year's final - said: "At the time it didn't seem anything out of the ordinary.

"There was already a lot of pressure I'd put on myself because I felt like I should perhaps have won it already. [Borg won in five sets in the final in 1980].

"[Because] it was in the first round, it felt like there was so much pent-up nerves and expectation that I put on myself. It was me against everyone there at the time, whether it was the press or the umpires."

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