McEnroe on guard as gender pay row returns at Wimbledon

After it was revealed he earned ten times more than Martina Navratilova for their BBC work last year, John McEnroe insisted it was not a comparable situation to players’ prize money.

“The way you presented that, it seemed like a trick question,” he says, smiling weakly. “The mature man that I am at this stage, the knowledgeable man I am about the way things can be presented, leads me to believe that it’s best if I stay out of this particular issue and let the BBC handle it right now.”

The players, of course, will receive the same prize money when this year’s Wimbledon begins on Monday. The provision of equal pay by the All England Club in 2007 — the last grand slam event to do so — was the culmination of a decades-long fight by the Women’s Tennis Association founder, Billie Jean King, champions such as Chris Evert and Navratilova herself, and, lately, Serena and Venus Williams.

Navratilova’s reaction when she discovered the discrepancy in the commentary box suggested she did not agree the situation was so different.

Asked if would he be doing the same job this year — droll asides during and after match commentary — McEnroe says: “I believe so. That’s up to the BBC.”

McEnroe, by general consensus, has been a breath of fresh air in the BBC commentary box — but so, too, has Navratilova. Her frankness and depth of knowledge bring something well suited to television.