McEnroe Shaping Up for Australian Open

John McEnroe, who once vowed never to play again in Australia, is making a big effort to prepare for next week’s Australian Open despite dismissing it as less important than the other Grand Slam events.

The veteran enfant terrible of the tennis circuit began preparing for the first Grand Slam of the 1990s today at the four-day Rio International Challenge in Adelaide.

“I tried to get down here as early as I could to give myself the best chance,” McEnroe said.

“I feel like I’m as prepared as I have been, but it’s always been a difficult tournament for me.”

Last year, he won a rock star’s welcome when he returned to the Australian Open for the first time since December, 1985, when he had vowed never to play there again after clashes with the media and a shock defeat by Yugoslav Slobodan Zivojinovic.

McEnroe never hid his hatred of the cramped old Kooyong courts in Melbourne--scene of his 1985 debacle--which he once described as “the worst grass court I have ever played on.”

He was so incensed by the “skating rink” conditions that he won a 21-day suspension for one two-word outburst in 1985.

The move to Flinders Park changed that, and this year, despite his insistence that the Open is “not as important as the other big tournaments,” McEnroe said he is making a big effort to adjust to the Australian summer.

He guided the United States to the Hopman Cup final in Perth last week, only to lose to Spain, and has been traveling with wife Tatum O’Neal and sons Kevin and Sean.

The world No. 4, who reached the quarter-finals last year and the semifinals on grass at Kooyong in 1983--his best performance at the Australian Open--said: “If conditions at Flinders Park are reasonable, my chances are good.

“It’s tough. If you go out there and it’s 140 degrees on the court, anything could happen.

“I couldn’t play six or seven straight matches at the top of my game if it’s hot.”

McEnroe said the Open could boil down to the survival of the fittest, favoring No. 1 Ivan Lendl.

“It’s sort of like a crapshoot. There’s not that many guys that are at their best form-wise, but some guys could be very fit at this time. . . . A guy like Lendl, he gets down here early and he’s very fit,” McEnroe said.