Tennis

McEnroe ready to back up his doubles smack talk

John McEnroe is no stranger to making people mad, as the dynamic doubles tandem of Bob and Mike Bryan have learned.

The Bryan twins, the sport’s all-time winningest double team, were ticked off when McEnroe recently said doubles might need to be abolished because of lagging interest and prize money.

Come March 3 at the Garden, they can settle their feud with McEnroe on the court, when they face the legendary tennis bad boy and brother Patrick in a doubles showdown to open the BNP Paribas tennis extravaganza.

That grudge match will precede the main event, in which Andy Murray takes on Novak Djokovic in a battle of two of the top-four-ranked men’s singles players.

McEnroe, 54, said he believes he and Patrick have a shot against arguably the best doubles pairing of all time. In fact, McEnroe said if he committed himself to training, he easily could play in the main-draw doubles circuit. He last played a doubles main draw in 2006 in San Jose with Jonas Borkman and won it.

“I think Djokovic-Murray is the main event, but I’m going out there to try my damndest to make this close and somehow, some way squeeze out a victory,’’ Mac told The Rumble. “Obviously it’s challenging. The beauty of doubles is you’re covering half the court. I played mainly singles but that’s why older guys 40-plus are high in the rankings. Who they are, that’s another story. People forget doubles was a big part of my career and something I loved.

“It’s sad where it’s gone.”

Boomer pants and raves about cold-weather gear

Just because there won’t be tailgating as we know it at the MetLife Super Bowl doesn’t mean fans can’t wear their favorite team’s colors and logos with the newly-licensed NFL Arctix Tail-Gaiters. CBS’ Boomer Esiason made the introduction to the NFL for the company, with an eye on this cold-weather Super Bowl.

“My initial thought was to put all the volunteers in the pants, they’d be perfect for it,” Esiason told The Rumble. “It’s taken a good year-and-a-half before we got to this point. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t anything like it. The NFL is very guarded with their licensees, and they don’t want to have redundancy in the market, certainly, and you gotta be very careful to make sure you have a product that somebody else isn’t already marketing, and lo and behold, nobody was marketing snow pants, which basically they termed now “tailgating” pants for cold weather, which is really a brilliant thing.

“There’s never been a snow tailgating pant with logos on it. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

King to raffle outdoor tickets

Henrik Lundqvist is giving two tickets to Wednesday’s Yankee Stadium Rangers-Islanders game, a meet-and-greet postgame and some signed gear on an online raffle. The tickets are $2 each, so anyone can try to win. Proceeds will go to the Henrik Lundqvist Foundation.

Nets aren’t celeb stalkers

In lieu of a report on the Garden’s longstanding active pursuit of celebrities to fill their front row for Knicks games, The Rumble called the Brooklyn Nets to ask their view on the celebrity scene at Barclays Center.

As with everything with these two rival franchises, it’s contrary.

“We don’t pursue celebrities to attend Nets games,’’ Barry Baum, the team’s chief communications officer at Barclays Center, told The Rumble. “It’s not our style. Celebrities that do come to Nets games pay for their seats. Whether you’re in the front row or last row, we treat everybody like a celebrity. We love when they come. But we won’t actively pursue them.’’

Baum said Chris Rock, Rihanna. Joe Girardi and David Beckham have been to Brooklyn games this season, and Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Strahan last year.

“We’re flattered celebrities wear our merchandise,’’ Baum said.