John McEnroe Doesn’t Back Down from Serena Comments, Jokingly Reranks Her Fifth in History of Tennis

mcenroe
Trent Baker

Former tennis great John McEnroe stirred up some controversy recently when he said women’s tennis player Serena Williams would be ranked 700th in the world if she played on the men’s circuit

Williams responded to McEnroe’s comments, telling him to keep her out of his statements — although NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro posed the question to McEnroe.

Tuesday on “CBS This Morning,” McEnroe refused to back down from his comments.

Co-anchor Norah O’Donnell asked McEnroe if he would like to apologize, and the 58-year-old declined.

“The offer is this, because it seems in tennis, unlike other sports, that they’re always asking about how women — they always ask me how I would do. Why isn’t this old bag John McEnroe, how would he do against Serena? Why don’t you combine, just solve the problem, I’m sure the men would be all for this, the men and women play together and then we don’t have to guess,” McEnroe replied.

McEnroe went on to say he did not know his comments would create controversy and said he would rank himself 1,200 at this point.

CBS’s Gayle King challenged McEnroe to apologize, to which he responded, “I would be happy to apologize to Serena if that makes you feel better. I think Serena is incredible.”

When asked to rank his top players in history, McEnroe jokingly named Williams his fifth of all time.

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

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