With the cancellation of Wimbledon this year there has been an absence of tennis in my summer schedule, but these biographies (along with the TV coverage culled from the archives) have helped fill the gap. After a healthy dose of Jimmy Connors in his own book last month I figured where better to go than to his nemesis John McEnroe, and his own book from 2002.

If you are coming to this biography expecting the wild bandanna-wearing loose cannon from his heyday in the early eighties, you may leave a little disappointed. Johnny Mac has chilled in his later years, and this is a reflective look at a more mellow character a decade removed from retirement. He’s aware of his faults (pun intended), and he knows the tantrum-throwing and the racquet-hurling is a large part of his schtick, and why audiences have stuck around with him for so long, and he although he doesn’t excuse his actions, he does at least attempt to explain where he was coming from.

But, histrionics aside, John McEnroe is one of the greatest players the sport has ever known. In 1984 (inarguably the best year of his career) he played 85 matches and lost only 3, which is still the best winning percentage any player has ever had.

He spends some time discussing his sometimes brutal marriage to actress Tatum O’Neal, as well as his even more brutal loss to Ivan Lendl in the final of the French Open in 1984. One thing he shares with Connors is his outright admiration for Bjorn Borg whose retirement from the game in 1981 at the age of just 26 opened the door for McEnroe to become the guy that all the others were chasing. We should all wonder how the tennis scene would have developed in the eighties had the Swede continued.

Give this one a look if you want to check out the life and career of someone who many describe as the first true genius of the tennis court.