Re: The Ivan Lendl interview
“Did you see that cartoon?” I ask.
“Of course not. As an athlete you should never read the press, good or bad,
it’s not good for you.”
“You lost the first two sets of that final and he was two games to love up
in the third.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asks.
“Well, that’s what McEnroe says in his book.”
“You are absolutely certain about that? I know popular recollection is that
he was two sets and a break up but my recollection was that he was not a
break up in the third but he was up a break in the fourth - 4-3 serving two
gain points for 5-3. That’s my recollection.”
“He definitely says in his book that he was up a break in the third,” I
insist.
“I dispute that. I don’t recall it that way.” [Lendl's recollection is
totally accurate].
“Okay,” I concede. “The bottom line is that you somehow managed to turn it
around.”
“Right.”
“Do you remember the turning point or a key moment? He describes being
distracted by the crackling of a TV microphone.”
“You mean a plane flew over and he got distracted,” he chuckles. “It didn’
t take much with John!”
“Do you remember a key moment?”
“No, what I remember is this. We played in Dusseldorf a week before and he
beat me 6-3, 6-2. About two weeks before that we played at Forest Hills and
he beat me 6-4, 6-2, or something like that. He didn’t lose a match that
year. It was one of the best years anybody ever had. So he was clearly the
favourite and we started and I’m just basically getting blown away and just
trying to make it respectable, that’s all I am trying to do.”
“You’re trying to survive?”
“What else are you going to do? You can either pack it in or you can keep
fighting. So I just kept fighting and I happened to win the third set and
from then on I thought I was going to win because I saw him tiring and I wasn
’t near tiring yet because the points were short.”
“How did it feel when you had done it?” [Lendl won 3-6 2-6 6-4 7-5 7-5].
“I don’t remember any of it.”
“You must.”
“I don’t remember any of it. A friend of mine said to me a few years later,
’You looked really tired in that locker room'. I said, ’What are you
talking about? You were not even there'. But apparently he was.”
“Did you celebrate that night?”
“No, I was too tired.”
“There was no joy? No elation?”
“Sure I was elated, of course I was elated but ... you play for yourself.
You don’t play for your parents or for your coach, you play for yourself.”
“But you didn’t celebrate?”
“No.”
“Did you drink?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“I had one beer after one of the Australian [Opens I won] and it was ugly. I
promised Tony [his coach, Tony Roche] I’d have a drink with him if I won and
it got ugly. We tried to remove some of the chairs from the room of the hotel
and forgot to open a window!” “Okay, back to McEnroe and your major. He
said some pretty cutting things about you over the years: ’The guy hasn’t
been good for tennis. He has been so selfish. And he’s certainly not the
kind of guy who brings out the best in others. He’s hurt the popularity of
the game so much ... Do you like a robot being No 1?’ "
“Sounds to me like sour grapes,” he smiles.
“He also said some very complimentary things. ’As much as I may have
disliked him, I have to give Lendl credit: nobody in the sport has ever
worked as hard as he did. He became a great champion'.
His expression contorts. “Ehh, somehow those two don’t go together, do they?
”
“He described the 84 French as the worst loss of his life, a devastating
defeat.”
“I think it was,” he concurs. “People always say it was the most important
match of my career and I disagree - I think I would have won my share
afterwards anyhow. But it was the most important match in a negative way of
his career because I think, if he had won, that he would have put more effort
into [winning] the Australian and would have finished with 10 or 12 majors
instead of seven, and talked about in the same breath as Rod Laver and Roger
Federer. I agree wholeheartedly that it was devastating for him and his
reputation and career.”
“You say you didn’t like him or Jimmy?”
“And I don’t think they liked each other, either.”
“Does it give you any pleasure that you inflicted so much pain on him
[McEnroe]?”
“No, not at all. It was nice to win and if it was somebody else I’d have
felt the same way.”
“What about your relationship with them now?”
“I have not seen Jimmy since he retired. I see John about once a year at
Madison Square Garden ...This is funny actually, Jerry [Lendl's former
manager, Jerry Solomon] and I ran that event last year between Sampras and
Federer and John was there doing television. So we talk a bit and I say, ’
You know John, ever since I met you in 1977 in Santos, Brazil, at a junior
banana ball, I knew one day you were going to work for me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he laughs.
“But John, actually, has a good sense of humour and he starts laughing and
says, ’Well let’s keep it at one day.”
“And you haven’t seen Jimmy? That’s a surprise.”
“Well, I don’t think Jimmy or I make a habit of hanging around tennis
tournaments. I mean he coached Roddick for a while but I don’t go to tennis
tournaments much. I am much more interested in juniors than the big boys.”
“Which of your rivals did you like most?”
“Edberg. He had a sick sense of humour just like me. You know what they say
about quiet water always making trouble? That’s Stefan.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong but 1984 was also the year you met your wife,
Samantha?”
“That’s wrong.”
“I read that you married in September 1989 and met five years before that.”
“Yes but I think it was less than five years. I’d better not say any more
or I’ll get in trouble.”
“You once said that if you had a family you would have to cheat either your
children or your tennis?”
“Right.”
“You won your last major at the Australian Open in 1990 and your daughter
Marika was born four months later.”
“Right.”
“So you ended up cheating on your tennis?”
“Well, when the kids are really small and if you have a very good spouse -
and I clearly do - there is not that much a man can do. So I would not blame
it on the family. It was just father time. In tennis, as you get older, it’s
not that you lose the straight-line speed or the stamina - the stamina
actually gets better - it’s the agility of turning [you lose] and agility
was starting to go. A split-of-a-second late here, two splits there and the
point is gone. And you can’t do anything about it. There is nowhere to hide.
”
“So it wasn’t so much the kids as a natural decline?”
“Right.”
“You once teased Tony Roche that he wasn’t a real man because his wife had
given birth to two daughters?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you feel when Samantha kept having girls?”
“I loved that. It didn’t bother me at all.”
“A son would have made no difference?”
“No.”
“You retired in 1994. A lot of great sportsmen struggle in retirement but
you have clearly flourished?”
“Well, life clearly changes,” he says. “You have to readjust your values
and learn very quickly that it’s not all about you all the time. If you don’
t, you have problems. I was trained to compete all my life and could not see
myself walking away from competition and that’s where golf came in. Golf was
a great vehicle for me to get the competition out of myself. I love
competing. I get nervous before I play. I get the same buzz as when I was
playing tennis. I love it.”
“That’s great.”
“I belong to four clubs and between the four of them I have won the club
championships 25 times now, which is a highlight for me ... It sounds silly
in a way when you’ve won the French and the US Opens to be worrying about
the club championships but the competitiveness is still there.”
“So golf has filled the void?”
“Yes, golf has been a saviour. I would have been at home biting my dogs!”
“How has Samantha put up with you for so long?”
“I don’t know,” he smiles.
“You must have some good qualities?”
“I think I’m fairly reasonable as long as I get those juices out of me. If
I don’t, I’m miserable.”
“You’re obviously still in love?”
“Of course, and not only with my family, I love my life.”
--
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