John McEnroe, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic respond to Gulbis after the latvian declared WAR

                      

Ernest Gulbis labelled the top 4 tennis players in the world 'boring' and demanded blood and war on and off the court (HERE). 

It came as little surprise to hear John McEnroe on Thursday expressing sympathy for the Latvian's view and less predictable was to find three of the targets of the criticism expressed by the outspoken 25 yr old - Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic - appearing to either back up or agree with his sentiment.

                         

'I don’t disagree that it would be nice in a way, people going at it a little more viciously,' said john McEnroe, who will be commentating for the BBC this summer. 'It’s not their styles I guess, they find it hard to show it.

'I’m not sure what there is underneath the surface, I don’t see it the way it was when it bubbled over between me and Connors or Lendl but I got along fine with Borg and he was my greatest rival, so I doesn’t mean you have to not like each other.

'It does seem like you don’t see that part of it out there very often, if at all. I don’t want to say it’s part of the entertainment value, but it seems like when you’re in a one on one sport you need it especially when there are so many more options than there were in the past. It seems like there’s got to be a way to grab the fans more.

'They respect what they’re seeing and look in awe at the athleticism, the shotmaking, but they don’t see a great deal of difference in the players. They don’t know much about the players. I’m not sure exactly what people know about Andy Murray in Great Britain but I don’t think people know much about him in the States.'

                       

In an interview published in GQ magazine on Thursday Murray appeared to accept that, saying: 'As an athlete, all I do is try my best to be as good as I can be as a tennis player. Whether people like you or not should be irrelevant.

'To be honest, over the years I have found it difficult to open up and be a bundle of laughs in press conferences, or interviews. I always try to give honest answers, but they are fairly boring so I don’t have to deal with the aftermath.'

                        

Speaking in Swiss-German, Federer added that if you criticise anyone it caused problems, so there was a tendency to be nice all the time. As if to prove the point he said that he understood where Gulbis was coming from and that he was 'partially right'.

                   

Djokovic gave a mature response when Gulbis’s comments were to put to him: 'I try to look at it on a positive side. I think that especially the top players are very respectful towards the sport and towards each other,' he said.

'This is very important, you know. Even though it’s individual sport, you know, we still have very respectful and healthy relationships

'It sends a good message out there. In some moments it can be more entertaining, yes, it can. But, again, there are good things, a lot of good things. There is always something you can find and say, Okay, that’s something that should be different.

'But I agree with one small fact is that maybe we are lacking more enthusiasm and maybe we need more entertainment in the players, more creativity in the players.'