{"id":439570,"date":"2025-09-20T22:53:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/439570\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T22:53:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:53:13","slug":"john-mcenroe-makes-bold-carlos-alcaraz-statement-and-says-hes-very-jealous-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/439570\/","title":{"rendered":"John McEnroe makes bold Carlos Alcaraz statement and says he’s ‘very jealous’ | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis icon John McEnroe<\/a> has heaped praise on Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, declaring the Spanish star the finest talent he’s witnessed at such a tender age. The world’s top-ranked player is at the peak of his powers, having recently won the US Open<\/a> and regained his position at the summit of the rankings. He pulled ahead of Jannik Sinner<\/a> following his victory over the Italian at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n

Despite having just secured a sixth Grand Slam crown, the 22-year-old was so enthralled by the team atmosphere last year that he’s already returned to competition this weekend as the Laver Cup<\/a> arrives in San Francisco. Alcaraz is competing for Team Europe against Team World.<\/p>\n

“I’ve watched tennis for 50 years, you know, longer in a way, and obviously we went through a period,” began McEnroe.<\/p>\n

“I mean, I idolised Rod [Laver], I just said that I got to play against Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, my three greatest rivals.<\/p>\n

“Along came these nobodies, what’s their name? [Boris] Becker, [Stefan] Edberg, [Andre] Agassi, [Pete] Sampras. You’re like: ‘Oh my god, this is amazing!’.<\/p>\n

“And then to top it off, you get Roger [Federer], Rafa [Nadal] and Novak [Djokovic], and you’re like: ‘I’m looking at the three greatest players that ever lived’.<\/p>\n

“And suddenly, somehow, along comes this other guy from Spain. I remember seeing him, he was probably 17: ‘Hey, this guy’s got some talent. That guy is pretty quick out there’.<\/p>\n

“Never in my wildest dreams… I’ll tell you, of all the players I’ve ever watched, at this age, I’ve never seen a player this good, this complete the last two or three years.<\/p>\n

“And with that damn smile that you have! I’m very jealous of that, okay.”<\/p>\n

When asked about Alcaraz’s new blonde look, McEnroe responded: “Well, the blond hair is… I don’t know about that one.<\/p>\n

“Whatever he wants, I’m happy with. Thank God for Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, what he’s bringing to the table.”<\/p>\n

To be the first to receive the latest tennis news, join our WhatsApp community<\/a> or newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis icon John McEnroe has heaped praise on Carlos Alcaraz, declaring the Spanish star the finest talent he’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[6359,13793,16144,148781,148780,148782,79,1068,31636,5838,16,15,18056],"class_list":{"0":"post-439570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","9":"tag-john-mcenroe","10":"tag-laver-cup","11":"tag-laver-cup-highlights","12":"tag-laver-cup-news","13":"tag-laver-cup-results","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis","16":"tag-tennis-latest","17":"tag-tennis-news","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-us-open-tennis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115239085854663464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439570","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=439570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}