Wimbledon’s No. 1 Enemy Is Back : But Now the Tabloids Call McEnroe a ‘Former Bad Boy’

Time changes everything, even Wimbledon. If you don’t think so, be advised that a certain three-time champion, formerly “Superbrat” in London’s popular press, is now referred to as “former bad boy, John McEnroe.”

As far as that goes, eight-time Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova is not the top-seeded woman. Navratilova, who has won the last six women’s singles titles here and who has assumed the same permanence as the horse guards, yields that honor to 19-year-old Steffi Graf, last year’s runner-up.

Things do change. Also, strawberries-and-cream has given way to cheese and crackers as the royal snack and the Pimm’s booth has been replaced by a man and a keg. What’s more, management encourages patrons to take their shirts off at centre court.

Kidding. Only some things change here, but any change at all is change too much. All of England seems in a quandary over this event. They like things to happen with a sense of order, a succession, you might call it. But this year’s Wimbledon is uncomfortably up for grabs.

They had a taste of that last year when Australian Pat Cash, whose claim to fame here is that a distant ancestor just may have been a highwayman, beat top-ranked Ivan Lendl in the men’s singles finals and then pretended centre court was on fire. Who can forget his mad scramble up the stands to reach his father? But there was some tradition and decorum preserved when Navratilova ticked off No. 8 in straight sets. When you’ve won eight Wimbledons, you know enough to take the stairs.

Cash is hardly a shoo-in to repeat. Although he did quash Lendl in the Australian Open, thereby silencing the Czech (“It is the only surface on which Cash could possibly beat me”), he is only seeded fourth here. Keep in mind, though he beat Lendl, he lost in Australia.

Lendl is the more likely of the two to emerge in a rematch. He is a highly motivated man and Wimbledon, if not all that motivates him, is what mainly motivates him. Lendl, seeded first even though he has yet to win a Grand Slam tournament this year, has never won Wimbledon, in which he has been runner-up or semifinalist in four of the last five years. It was the same with the U.S. Open, then he built a replica of that court in his backyard. And then he won it three times in a row.

On Sunday, he was serving rockets on the practice court and digging divots on straining returns with his racket. Afterward he kindly excused himself from any interview. “I will talk after Wimbledon,” he said.

Perhaps even more mindful of upsets is two-time champion Boris Becker, the wunderkind who made Peter Doohan famous for a day or two. Becker is seeded No. 6 and still seems to be suffering from that second-round Wimbledon loss. “I have learned you have to suffer in order to move up again,” he told the London Express. But has Becker, who won two Wimbledons by the age 19, suffered enough?

When you speak of suffering, you must consider Mats Wilander, who has two legs up on the Grand Slam this year--by winning the Australian and French opens--but who folds like an umbrella when he gets near Wimbledon. He has never gotten beyond the quarterfinals.

But Wilander is not much of a mystery man when compared with John McEnroe, who is coming back from paternity and, presumably, maturity. After a two-year absence from Wimbledon, he appears to be getting something of a welcome from his old enemy, the English tabloid press. But of more interest than his temper is his peculiar tennis genius. Few believe he is back to where he was in 1984, but there is a sense of fury inside him.

The Wimbledon establishment, which seems to have had mixed feelings about him over the years, seeded him eighth in a popular, sentimental move. McEnroe would have to beat everybody to win this tournament, of course, but he wouldn’t have to play Lendl, Becker or Cash to reach the final. Curious, isn’t it?

The men’s turnover has always seemed extreme compared to the women. Martina has somehow evolved physically to stay ahead of this game for the last near-decade. But she can only get leaner and meaner than the competition. She can’t get younger. She’s--believe it--31. Oh, that’s not old? Meet Steffi Graf, No. 1 and just 19.

Graf has been in the finals of the last five Grand Slam tournaments and has won the last two, and it will be a major upset if she doesn’t make it six during this fortnight.

As the players practiced Sunday on the distant practice court, workmen applied some finishing touches on the stands, dabbing that deep green paint here and there. And, yes, they retouched the strawberries-and-cream booth and, yes, they posted that “spectators will keep their shirts on at centre court” sign. Many things do remain the same. And, before this is over, it will probably rain, too.