"We desperately need to see that" says John McEnroe backing Kyrgios' call for new personalities in tennis

John McEnroe agrees with Nick Kyrgios that tennis needs new personalities as Djokovic, Federer and Nadal won't be playing forever.

In a recent interview, Nick Kyrgios said that tennis focuses too much on three players which left the sport in a weird situation where there isn't a lot of interest in the sport when you look past Djokovic, Federer and Nadal. McEnroe agrees with that saying:

“These guys aren’t going to be doing it forever and we desperately need to see that. I completely agree with Nick on that and I’m hopeful that he will be one of the guys that we will be able to focus on… if he can go out and consistently give the type of effort necessary to win majors."

However McEnroe also understands why tennis focused mostly on the big three:

“It would be pretty hard on the other hand not to focus the last 10-15 years on those three guys. What they’ve done is beyond belief, out of this world. Winning 20 majors each. I used to think I had seven, that’s pretty good. Well it doesn’t look so good now. This is an amazing thing. We’re looking at these legends that are playing at the same time and doing things that are absolutely extraordinary, but at the same time I do think tennis needs to look around for other guys because the future is now."

He finished off by saying:

“I’ve been talking about the need in tennis for personalities. You need to have a rooting interest in someone. Whether you think he’s the bad guy, some people think Djokovic is Darth Vader. Everyone loves Roger Federer. It’s not like it is in team sports where you can root for your city or your country, so this idea of expressing yourself and showing personality is very important."

Read also

Kyrgios and Kokkinakis keep Cinderella run alive by reaching Australian Open doubles final