Retired tennis great John McEnroe is setting the record straight on how much Donald Trump once offered him to play in a battle-of-the-sexes match against Serena or Venus Williams.
A million bucks.
"It was after Serena and Venus were talking about how they could beat a lot of guys," McEnroe says in an interview on "In Depth with Graham Bensinger."
"You aren't gonna have me say I can't beat them," the famously cranky on-court pro said.
At the time, McEnroe had suggested Serena Williams would probably rank "like, 700" if she were in a men's league, which prompted a fiery response from the then-pregnant Williams, who asked he "keep me out of your statements that are not factually based."
In the interview with Bensinger posted Wednesday, McEnroe enlarged on the Trump response to the banter between the two tennis legends.
"So, I was calling a match and suddenly I get this envelope and it's from Donald Trump. . . . He wrote me a letter, 'Dear John, I want to offer you one million dollars . . . to play either Serena or Venus.'"
It was not that hard to turn it down, McEnroe said.
"It's never been something where I was like . . . I wanna go play a woman in a match," he said.
But, McEnroe laughed, even his own children are not convinced he would beat Serena Williams, adding, "maybe I'm not as sure now that I could do it as I was then."
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