"People are more like me and Connors than Borg" - McEnroe believes today's tennis players are too nice

John McEnroe, probably the most famous bad boy in tennis, is of the opinion that today's superstars such as Rafael Nadal are "unbelievably nice" -- and not necessarily in a good way.

Nadal has one of the biggest reputations in the sport, one that extends way beyond his prowess on the court. As much as he is known for winning an unimaginable 14 titles at the French Open, Nadal is just as admired for the way he conducts himself in front of the fans.

One such feather in the 22-time Grand Slam champion's cap is the fact that he has never broken a racquet in his career -- a characteristic drilled into him from a young age by his uncle Toni Nadal, who saw the act as disrespectful and impolite. McEnroe, however, begs to differ.

Speaking in a recent interview with The Week magazine on the occasion of his documentary coming out, the American remarked that such gentlemen are more often an exception than the norm.

In a sport like tennis where emotions are always running high, McEnroe reckons more players are similar to hotheads like him and Jimmy Connors than the cold and emotional persona of someone like Bjorn Borg. The seven-time Grand Slam champion recalled how he himself had tried to emulate Borg in the past, but such an impassionate approach to the game proved to be simply beyond him.

"Players today seem like unbelievably nice people. Rafael Nadal has claimed he’s never broken a racket in his life. But generally, I think people are, as far as tennis goes, more like me and Connors than Borg, who never showed any expression," McEnroe said. "It’s a very frustrating game that it’s hard not to get emotional about. I’d be, like, 'I’m gonna go practice and be like Borg for two hours,' and that would last, like, five minutes. It just wasn’t in my DNA.”

The former World No. 1 further added that, slowly, he bought into his own "brat" personality, to the point that it completely changed his life. McEnroe regretted how people came to recognize him only as the bad guy -- which might be slightly true on the tennis court, but off the court, he was just as nice a guy as anyone else.

“You sort of feed into this villain thing, maybe unbeknownst to yourself, and then it becomes this out-of-control monster," McEnroe said. "People started to recognize me—‘Are you that brat guy?’—and it completely changed my life. I was, like, ‘They don’t understand me, I’m a nice guy.’ But of course I wasn’t real nice on the court at times.”

Regarding how he and Connors managed to intimidate their opponents despite their relatively small stature, the 63-year-old revealed that it had nothing to do with one's physicality at all. Instead, it all depends primarily upon the intensity one radiates off their body, which will go a long way in instilling fear in the minds of the opponents.

“Connors isn’t that big a guy, I’m not that big a guy, you have to come at your opponents with an intensity that radiates off your body,” McEnroe said. “That’s what intimidates them.”