Connors and Lendl Both Find a Winning Diet at the Masters

Diets were the topic of the day Friday at the Volvo Grand Prix Masters.

First, there was Ivan Lendl’s:

Soups.

Fruit.

Vegetables.

Pasta.

Chicken.

Cereals.

Then, there was Jimmy Connors’:

Eliot Teltscher’s serve.

Eliot Teltscher’s forehand.

Eliot Teltscher’s backhand.

Since 1979, Teltscher’s game has proved to be quite sumptuous fare for Connors. The two have met 13 times, and Connors has won every time.

Friday was no exception. In the Masters quarterfinals before 14,261 fans at Madison Square Garden, Connors quickly gobbled up everything Teltscher fed him en route to a 6-2, 6-4 victory.

That set up the predictable, a Connors-Lendl confrontation in today’s semifinals. Lendl, leaner and meaner thanks to his new no-fat diet, advanced earlier Friday with a 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) triumph over Joakim Nystrom.

Thus, all four seeded players have reached the Masters semifinals. John McEnroe (No. 1) and Mats Wilander (No. 4) meet in the first match today, beginning at 9:30 a.m. (PST), followed by Connors (No. 2) and Lendl (No. 3).

And Connors and Lendl moved up considerably easier than McEnroe and Wilander, who nearly made instant heroes out of Anders Jarryd and Johan Kriek in a pair of quarterfinal scares Thursday.

Friday, nothing was in doubt. In fact, Connors may have won before the first practice ball was stroked.

When you’re 12-0 against an opponent, you know he has to be thinking, “Can No. 13 be that far away?”

And Teltscher was.

“I can’t really say I’m confident that I’m going to beat him,” Teltscher said. “It’s the same old story. No matter what I do, he does it a little bit better. Maybe the reality of the situation is I just can’t beat him.”

After his first-round victory over Tomas Smid, Teltscher promised he would try something different this time against Connors. “Maybe I need to try something a little strange,” he said.

So Teltscher, a baseline pounder by nature, came out lobbing, rushing the net, slicing his backhand. Connors noticed the change.

Both players noticed it didn’t make any difference.

“If that was different,” Connors said, “I think he should go back to what he was doing before.”

Said Teltscher: “I tried coming in a little more, but I’m not comfortable doing that--and it wasn’t working. Against him, I don’t know if it really matters that much what I do. If I’m going to lose, I’m going to do it my way.”

How much of a mismatch has Connors-Teltscher become? This much:

During the fifth game of the second set, Connors broke a racket string in mid-rally. Tension gone, the racket was rendered virtually useless, but Connors kept flailing away--patting back one forehand and then coming to the net to smash an overhead that skipped past Teltscher.

Point, Connors.

Meanwhile, Lendl was disposing of Nystrom so methodically (only one service break the entire match) that most of the postmatch interview session was devoted to Lendl’s diet.

It’s part of Lendl’s major project for 1985: Operation Beat McEnroe. To do that, Lendl figures he has to move better on the court. Lose some weight, win some more matches.

After the U.S. Open, Lendl decided to try a program devised by Dr. Robert Haas.

“They take some of your blood, put it into the computer and they tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat,” Lendl said.

By cutting out fats, fried foods, sugars and sodas, Lendl dropped 15 pounds and gained more energy.

“I feel so much stronger and alive,” he said. “In the morning, I used to wake up and say, ‘I’m going to sleep for another half-hour.’ Now, I wake up and I’m ready to go.”

Of course, pre-diet Lendl was never confused with Orson Welles. His frame bordered on skeletal even then.

The loss of 15 pounds has had no effect on Lendl’s thunderous forehand, however. Nystrom can attest to that.

“He hits so hard,” Nystrom said in quiet appreciation. “His serve and his forehand, he hits them maybe harder than anybody else.”

Nystrom couldn’t figure out either. Nystrom had zero--that’s right, zero--break point opportunities. In fact, he managed two points in a Lendl service game only twice.