McEnroe was in London last week for the Aegon Masters at the Royal Albert Hall, the final event on the Legends Tour. Never short of an opinion, he shared his thoughts with the Daily Mail on the prospects of the top four going into next season.
"Djokovic is the favourite for Australia but if he retired at two sets to one down in the quarter-finals because he couldn’t breathe that also wouldn’t shock me," McEnroe mused. "It looked like he had conquered that sort of thing but going down the stretch maybe he wasn’t digging as deep as he could."
"Perhaps he was already thinking about next year. After my best year [McEnroe recorded 82 wins and just 3 losses in 1984] maybe I didn’t realise how much energy I’d expended. If you've had a dominant year there’s a tendency to think: ‘Why do I need to improve?’
I made the mistake of sitting on what I’d accomplished and not working on things. It seems that he wasn’t able to find a way to win in the last few months, but that could come back suddenly."
Roger Federer ended 2011 as the man in the driving seat, reeling off three straight titles to win in Basel, Paris and then London. However McEnroe does not see the Swiss having as much success on the medium paced hard courts down under.
"I still think he is going to win another Slam," he said. "But remember Australia will be different to London. The court won’t be as fast, it will be hotter. And it is best of five, not three."
