Match Point. Routines and Representation Practices of Tennis Champions in Cinema: The McEnroe Case

This chapter focuses on the celebrity status of the tennis player John McEnroe, both delving into the most relevant aspects of his career in the context of the sports culture and examining the different forms of narration and representation shaped by his icon in his post-career phase, thanks to his universally undisputed charm. Many media have been deployed to construct McEnroe’s star image, both on a popular, artistic, and prestige level: published material (such as volumes on McEnroe, biographies, autobiographies, illustrated books and so on), cinema (fiction films and documentaries), television (TV shows and specials, that were created over time also thanks to the importance of the mediatization of athletes’ biographies and past champions mythologization), and audiovisual and digital media (his most epic tennis moments on YouTube, for instance). Furthermore, the case of the American tennis player seems to stand out because of his ability to manage his own celebrity capital, working in full alliance with the media industry, while constantly renewing his past and present image. It is precisely for this reason that we can consider him a precious example to understand the cultural dynamics of sports celebrity culture.