The noise, he said,”takes away from the your appreciation of what they're doing” and should be banned. Men are fine to make noise, he argues, because the pitch is lower.

He does, however, think that women and men should be paid the same.

The book, his third autobiography, is entitled But, Seriously, and lifts the lid on the ongoing rivalry between players.

When Andy Murray appointed Ivan Lendl his coach, McEnroe – whose legendary feud with the Czech player was one of the most memorable in sport – admitted that he was furious.

He described his immediate reaction in the book, writing: “'Ah, no way, he hired Lendl. It's not going to work'. Then I realised: 'Oh my God, it is going to work'. That was even worse.”

McEnroe said that he hated Murray's former coach Brad Gilbert so much that when he lost to him in 1986 he stopped playing tennis for six months.

McEnroe described Gilbert as a “world-class talker”.

“Murray is always complaining about one thing or another but he doesn't say much the rest of the time so he could have just been driven nuts by Brad's constant chatter,” McEnroe notes.

He does, however, praise Lendl for his work with Murray, saying that he got Murray “believing in himself more”, improved his fitness and made him mentally tougher.