John McEnroe on the NYC icon that went from tennis to rock ‘n’ roll
nypost.comJohn McEnroe made his debut at 18 with a bang.An unseeded upstart, the Queens native found himself on the same clay courts where he was once a ballboy — gliding and grinding in an interborough contest against Brooklyn-born Top Tenner Eddie Dibbs in his third-round match.
But, on the first changeover, something wildly unexpected happened.“We were switching sides and then there was some commotion up in the stands, and the umpire said to us, ‘Someone’s been shot in the stands,’ ” McEnroe, 64, told The Post. “And Eddie Dibbs was like, ‘I’m getting the hell outta here!’ We walked off the court, and we sort of waited to find out what was going on.”It turned out that a spectator had been accidentally shot in the leg from a stray bullet fired from outside the stadium.
But the incident pumped up a feisty young McEnroe to score one of his first big upsets.“We went back and played the match, which was one of my biggest wins of my life at that time,” said McEnroe, who went on to lose to 1975 US Open champion Manuel Orantes in the fourth round. “It was certainly a bizarre first US Open for me.”It was also the last he would play at Forest Hills Stadium.
The following year, the tourney moved a few miles north to Flushing Meadows, where McEnroe would eventually smash his way to four victories at what is now known as the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
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