In a familiar sight, John McEnroe, who helped honor Marya Welch at the dedication of the new $800,000 tennis center bearing her name, banters with the umpire during the tennis legend's visit to campus April 14. In good humor — mostly — McEnroe, 46, stared down line judges, threw his racquet, and even lectured the chair umpire before a sell-out crowd of 1,000. Aggies women's coach Bill Maze, McEnroe's former teammate at Stanford, invited McEnroe to the event. UC Davis tennis players Ally Muller and Robin Guier played mixed doubles, and Michael Chin and Justin Garcia played men's doubles with McEnroe and Wayne Ferreira, who recently retired from professional tennis. Against Ferreira, McEnroe found himself down 7-2, then won three straight games, but, ultimately lost 8-5 to a player 14 years his junior.
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Clifton B. Parker, Dateline, (530) 752-1932, cparker@ucdavis.edu