{"id":323783,"date":"2025-08-06T23:53:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323783\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T23:53:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:53:17","slug":"john-mcenroe-sparked-us-open-riot-that-saw-police-storm-court-before-1am-mcdonalds-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323783\/","title":{"rendered":"John McEnroe sparked US Open riot that saw police storm court before 1am McDonald’s visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McEnroe was renowned for his outbursts on the tennis court, but he wasn’t ‘lovin’ it’ when one rival was causing chaos against him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The American claimed his first major singles title at the 1979 US Open<\/a>, but one match remains more memorable than the final itself.<\/p>\n

\"McEnroe<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

McEnroe is never afraid to speak his mindCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

McEnroe<\/a> defeated Vitas Gerulaitis, 7\u20135, 6\u20133, 6\u20133, to lift the trophy, having already dispatched defending champion Jimmy Connors.<\/p>\n

However, the 66-year-old truly met his match during a second-round match against Ilie Nastase, another of the sport\u2019s original bad boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cNastase was a great player, but he was a character,\u201d said McEnroe to the New York Times<\/a> in 2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou loved him or hated him, but a lot of people got a kick out of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his regular arguments with umpires and smashing rackets, McEnroe was only ever disqualified from a match once<\/a> in his career.<\/p>\n

Even more incredibly, that didn’t take place in a match he was involved in that included a player defaulting and rioting fans.<\/p>\n

But McEnroe admitted what unfolded on the night he faced Nastase wasn’t entirely unexpected following a US Open scheduling change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a buzz all day,\u201d he added. \u201cPlaying night matches was relatively new, and that\u2019s what made them fun. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople had finished work, they could loosen up a bit, have a couple of drinks and then turn rowdy and crazy, potentially. And that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fireworks may have been expected anyway, with McEnroe nicknamed ‘Super Brat’, and Nastase releasing a 2024 documentary called ‘Nasty’.<\/p>\n

\"McEnroe's<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

McEnroe’s outbursts during his career were infamousCredit: Getty\"But<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

But the ‘clown prince of tennis’ Nastase, was the sport’s original bad boyCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

Coming into the match, the latter was already a two-time Grand Slam winner, while the home favourite was still seeking his first.<\/p>\n

The caveat was that the Romanian was past his best, had lost the last two meetings between the two, and looked set to record a third.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is, he saw pretty early in the match that things weren\u2019t going to work out for him on court, so he just figured he would take it to the limit,\u201d McEnroe continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recall doing anything, actually. That was one of the best-behaved matches I ever played.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nastase tried every trick in his veteran playbook to unsettle McEnroe, who was leading by two sets to one and on serve early in the fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called me a son of a b**** and I replied, ‘Mister son of a b****’,\u201d Nastase told the\u00a0Tennis Legend<\/a>\u00a0podcast. \u201cI was 33 years old. I wanted to annoy him.<\/p>\n

\"Nastase<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

Nastase was penalised for unsportsmanlike conduct and lay on the court at one stageCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cI started walking slowly, wasting time. The umpire asked me, ‘Are you hurt?’ I said, ‘No, I\u2019m just walking slowly because I\u2019m old’. <\/p>\n

\u201cMcEnroe was getting angry, and he asked the umpire to penalise me. The umpire then disqualified me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was nearing midnight when umpire Frank Hammond first penalised Nastase with a loss of the game and announced the score as 3-1.<\/p>\n

Spectators inside the old Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York angrily reacted by throwing cups and cans onto the court.<\/p>\n

Police were then forced to intervene as other fans attempted to storm the arena, as Nastase complained the noise was affecting him.<\/p>\n

Hammond, tournament referee Mike Blanchard, and tournament director Bill Talbert all failed to get the 10,549 crowd to stop booing.<\/p>\n

\"There<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

There was a 17\u2010minute delay while police were on the court to deal with fan furyCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

Pandemonium then erupted as umpire Hammond announced, ‘Game, set and match McEnroe’, when Nastase continued to refuse to serve.<\/p>\n

Nastase added: \u201cMcEnroe started yelling, ‘No, I don\u2019t want to play.’<\/p>\n

\u201cThe umpire firmly told him, ‘If you don\u2019t play, I\u2019ll throw you out.’ He calmed down, and the match resumed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanchard ultimately replaced Hammond in the chair,\u00a0and the score was returned to 2-1 for the resumption of play.<\/p>\n

The original umpire was later seen crying in the post-match media conference, after McEnroe won 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.<\/p>\n

\"McEnroe<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

McEnroe eventually won the match and later went on to claim his first Grand Slam titleCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 48 years of tennis,\u201d said Talbert, as per The New York Times\u2019s print archive<\/a> in September 1979, \u201cI’ve never seen anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the box seats, two men were fighting, and their wives were fighting,\u201d he added. \u201cMy wife heard one woman \u2014 I wouldn’t even repeat what she was shouting to Nastase. The words \u2014 I’ve never heard them in most locker rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

His son Peter, who was in the crowd that night, told the same outlet in 2019: \u201cI just remember a photo of my dad, his head bowed, as if to say, \u2018When is this going to end?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to get rid of Frank. It wasn\u2019t a popular decision. But there was a riot going on. He was scared of what might happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for McEnroe and Nastase, their fiery meeting quickly turned to water under the bridge following a late-night McDonald’s visit.<\/p>\n

John McEnroe tips Andy Murray for stunning comeback with interesting Novak Djokovic theory<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we finished, it was 1am,\u201d Nastase explained to the\u00a0Tennis Legend\u00a0podcast. \u201cI decided to go to McDonald\u2019s with a friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I walked in, McEnroe was there with two girls – his girlfriend and another girl. We sat two meters away from him. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe drank a beer and eventually ended up at the same table. That\u2019s how it ended.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John McEnroe was renowned for his outbursts on the tennis court, but he wasn’t ‘lovin’ it’ when one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[116970,13793,116973,79,1068,5838,16,15,5067,116971,116972],"class_list":{"0":"post-323783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ilie-nastase","9":"tag-john-mcenroe","10":"tag-mcenroe-nastase","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-tennis-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-us-open","17":"tag-us-open-disqualified","18":"tag-us-open-rule-break"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114984518164607887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}