‘He slammed the door shut’

• Franklin Stoker

  follows the ABN Amro Open in Rotterdam

You’ll just have to cross the Atlantic to try and get one of the world’s greatest tennis players into your tournament, only to get the proverbial middle finger at the meeting. Or you get an ominous phone call that your star player has been thrown into a police cell.

It all happened to former tournament director Peter Bonthuis of the then ABN tournament, which nowadays goes through life as the ABN Amro Open and starts today. These are stories that can hardly be imagined now.

Bonthuis worked from 1974 to 1983 at the largest tennis tournament in the Netherlands and was therefore tried and tested when he boarded a plane to Memphis in 1981 to visit the popular American. The visit takes a surprising turn.

“On arrival I looked up his room in the hotel and he opened the door, at least he still did. He saw me standing there and closed the door again,” says Bonthuis in 2013 in a NOS report about his special encounter.

According to Bonthuis, McEnroe is only interested in money. Later that evening, the two meet again by chance in the lobby of the hotel. Now an amicable conversation ensues, but McEnroe doesn’t bite yet. Whether the chance encounter ultimately played a role is anyone’s guess, but years later ‘Big Mac’ would still make an appearance three times in Ahoy.

At that time, Bonthuis says he got along a lot better with another ‘bad boy’: the Argentinian Guillermo Vilas. He makes the director go white with fright when he ends up in a Rotterdam police cell with his moustachioed manager Ion Tiriac, notorious for his eccentric behavior and manner of acting, around the tournament.

Vilas and Tiriac have no identification with them when they are arrested by an “overzealous” Rotterdam police officer. “Tiriac had a very large Mercedes with a license plate from Monaco and still looked a bit extravagant with his large head of hair. That was noticeable. Everyone knew Vilas, except this agent,” says Bonthuis.

The event fits into the zeitgeist of the late 1970s and early 1980s in which some of the top tennis players behave and are treated like rock stars.

Players like McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Vilas, Vitas Gerulaitis, Ilie Nastase, but also the introverted Björn Borg, often do what they feel like. And they have all played in Ahoy.

The stars don’t shy away from intimidating referees and line judges, insulting photographers and sometimes leaving a tournament early, while collecting huge amounts of starting money.

“There was always something happening. It was never a dull moment,” said Tom Okker in 2013. “Nowadays if someone behaved like McEnroe or Nastase, they would have been suspended, but the public loved it. They also expected an outburst from McEnroe or Nastase, that’s what they came to the stadium for.”

But what does McEnroe actually know about Rotterdam in 2023? According to the now 63-year-old American, the tournament already had a good reputation in the seventies and eighties.

“I loved the energetic atmosphere that was always there. It was already one of the best indoor tournaments in Europe in my time,” McEnroe said in January during an online press conference.

In 1994 he plays the last singles match of his career in Ahoy (“I helped the tournament out after a number of cancellations”) and appears again in Rotterdam in 1998 to give an anniversary concert on the center court with the French ex-tennis player Yannick Noah. in honor of the 25th edition of the tournament.

McEnroe knows that well too. “Only my wife didn’t let me do this too often, I had to stick to tennis!” smiles the American, who then spontaneously conjures up his electric guitar in his living room in New York. “Shall I play a bit then?”

The journalists present then look forward to a spontaneous guitar solo, but the once so flamboyant ‘Big Mac’ quickly puts his showpiece back in the suitcase and crawls back into his role as a tennis analyst.

But then finally. What does McEnroe actually remember about Peter Bonthuis’ visit to Memphis in 1981? Did he really bluntly close the door in front of the Rotterdam tournament director?

“Fake news! I think this gentleman wants to tell a nice story,” says McEnroe, but the smile that slowly appears on his face afterwards is telling.

He then makes a slightly apologetic gesture: “That’s just me.…”