McEnroe’s Fire Goes Out Early : Masur, Ranked 64th, Eliminates Him in Straight Sets

John McEnroe, who has often flared across Centre Court’s twilight, fizzled like a nearly spent sparkler Thursday night in the Wimbledon tennis championships.

He had neither the brilliance nor the temperament to hold off Wally Masur, merely a “useful player” in the game’s cruel argot, a player ranked all of 64th in the world.

Perhaps this is how legends finally leave: With regrets, certainly, but largely without argument. And sadly against the backdrop of mediocrity.

The three-time champion went gently into the night, leaving the tournament in its second round. He couldn’t win a set. And although he appealed calls, it was without much fervor. Just once did he lose his racket, and never his head. He was equally languid holding the racket, allowing set points to vanish in the first two sets.

Having lost, 5-7, 6-7, the third set was but a formality at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. McEnroe let it slip away in a moment of indecision. And Masur, who had never won on Centre Court, nervously held his serve in the growing darkness, winning, 6-3.

McEnroe briskly walked off Centre Court and perhaps into history.

Later, he insisted otherwise. Sitting in a T-shirt, scratching his head and rubbing his nose--the usual bundle of nervous tics--McEnroe promised he would continue his comeback. It would take longer than we thought, he said, but it was no less necessary, for the sake of tennis.

Two years gone from Wimbledon, scene of his triumph and travail, he had been entered with perhaps too much promise. His fourth-round loss to top-ranked Ivan Lendl in the recent French Open may have oversold his comeback. He is, after all, just 29. And he was once the most brilliant player in the world.

“Maybe I needed a little more time, considering the atmosphere here,” he said, passing his hand over his receding hairline.

If McEnroe wanted to hedge on the direction of his career, he did not shy away from the condition of his tennis. In no particular order he called it, “disgusting,” “embarrassing,” “inferior” and “ridiculous.”

He said: “I wouldn’t have won the women’s tournament.” And: “If that’s the best I’ve got to give, I’ll quit tomorrow.

“It’s amazing to think about,” he said, running his hands through his thinning curls. “It makes me sick.”

It wasn’t very good. Even Masur had to admit that McEnroe “was not the player he was three or four years ago . . . his concentration was sporadic throughout.”

Masur, who beat Boris Becker in last year’s Australian Open, doesn’t really seem to have the stomach for these giant killings. “You feel kind of sorry for him,” the Australian said. “The mighty have fallen and all that.”

McEnroe kept saying he was never comfortable physically. “Just didn’t get into my game, never felt I was in sync. I didn’t get on my game, wasn’t coming up with any shots. I just felt lousy.”

Later he said: “I couldn’t, like, even react. Volleys, I wasn’t even bending my knees. The basics! I wasn’t even doing the basics.”

He shook his pale head. Of all the tennis players, he continues to look more like a pharmacist than an athlete. “The last couple of days, my body went down.”

Even so, he came closer to winning than a straight-set loss might suggest.

In the first set, he was ahead, 5-4, with Masur serving at 30-40. McEnroe suffered an unreturned serve on his set point.

In the second set, he blew another set point at 6-5. In the tiebreaker, McEnroe was ahead, 2-1, serving. A backhand volley went wide. He beefed, but with little insistence or expectation. Masur went on to take the next two points for a 4-2 lead and eventually won the tiebreaker, 7-5.

Even at that, you probably wouldn’t have bet against McEnroe in the third set. Down 2-4, he threw away two chances to break Masur. In the same game, McEnroe also let a volley by Masur go by, thinking it was long. It wasn’t.

There was a mini-drama, recalling his golden days, as McEnroe approached the umpire, argued, walked back and bounced his racket off the grass. Masur went on to win the game and that recalled nothing from the early ‘80s when McEnroe last ruled.

“I should have hit the ball, anyway,” he said. “Me expecting to get a good call, that was stupid. In retrospect, maybe it would have paid off if I took a swing. Something might have happened.”

But that reminded McEnroe of how Wimbledon, all its green, glorious sod, is tilted against him. “It’s kind of sad,” he continued, taking up an old theme. “It shows you how much I have to overcome . . . “

Never mind, though.

“I can’t let it go like this,” he said. “These guys are just no good, no better than when I left. I may never do it, but I don’t see anything out there doing anything special.” Pause: “Me either, I was stinking up the place.”

McEnroe can offend when he assumes his lofty position in this game, although he softens the effect on the other hand.

“It’s not like tennis will stop altogether when I walk out,” he said. “But I think it’s a critical time for tennis and me. This is a critical time for tennis. It’s losing interest rapidly in America and that’s a major market.”

He is not taking it entirely on his shoulders, but he seemed to say he doesn’t mind the burden. But until he can beat the likes of Masur, the game will need a lot of patience to get through this “critical time.”

“The first nine years were sort of like the coast,” he said, recalling his effortless climb to top ranking. “This is the difficult part. Two things can happen. I can come out of it, or I can play in this mold, inferior tennis, really. The real test is to see how I come out of it.”

Or if he does at all.