John McEnroe had a fantastic rivalry with Bjorn Borg because of the contrast of styles and characters. On one side the American was irascible, and he used to attack his opponents; on the other side, Borg was much more poised, and he achieved greatness with a pristine defensive game.
The movie
The movie is based on the epic 1980 Wimbledon final when Borg defeated McEnroe in an epic 5-setter (spoiler?).
Why McEnroe is upset
John thinks that the film will not be accurate, and he might be right after he noticed that Shia LaBeouf, the actor playing him, was photographed on the set while hitting with the right hand (we all know that John is a lefty!)
In addition, McEnroe commented
“I don’t know if they are planning on doing the whole movie without input or any type of arrangement from Bjorn or me. I haven’t seen anything, and they’ve already started the movie.”
It’s difficult even for tennis players to re-enact what they did,” he added. “So how in the hell is an actor going to do it on a court? It looks fake. They look like actors who can’t play. You see these guys; they go out there and they barely even know how to play tennis. Hopefully, they’re focusing on stuff off the court. Unless they intertwine it with real footage. Then it would be cool, maybe.”
Uh-oh,” McEnroe commented. “It’s the actual hitting of the ball I worry about. I don’t know who his body double is, but let’s hope he’s lefty, for starters.”
Is McEnroe right to be upset?
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