At Last, Lendl Is the Best : Czech Brushes McEnroe Aside in Straight Sets

For once, the walls of Louis Armstrong Stadium didn’t start closing in on Ivan Lendl as soon as the U.S. Open championship appeared within his grasp.

For once, fear struck out when, before, it had never failed to take out Lendl in straight sets.

For once, at the site of his gravest attacks of claustrophobia, Lendl encountered vindication, not suffocation.

Sunday afternoon, for the first time in four appearances in the U.S. Open men’s final, Ivan Lendl dealt an overhead smash to the demons that have so vexed him here, wiping out his greatest rival, John McEnroe, in straight sets, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4.

McEnroe was the one who extended Lendl’s winless streak in Open finals to three last year. Prior to that, Jimmy Connors had denied Lendl in 1982 and 1983, humiliating defeats that first brought the term choke and the name Lendl together as an entry.

In 1985, Lendl paid them both back--vanquishing Connors in the semifinals and McEnroe in the championship match. It was the way Lendl wanted to win his first U.S. Open.

“If you asked me two weeks ago, I would have said I would take it over my grandmother,” Lendl said. “This makes it that much sweeter.”

And, for the small country of Czechoslovakia, this makes it a clean sweep of the U.S. Open singles titles. Hana Mandlikova, women’s champion. Ivan Lendl, men’s champion.

It also marks the first time since 1973 that two non-Americans won both U.S. Open championships. Twelve years ago, John Newcombe and Margaret Smith Court claimed both the men’s and women’s divisions for Australia.

Lendl’s triumph paralleled Mandlikova’s the day before in theme as well as national representation. An enigma, an enormous talent of unfulfilled expectations, finally came of age.

Lendl had previously qualified for finals in seven Grand Slam tournaments. He left the court a winner only once, after his five-set decision over McEnroe on Roland Garros clay in the 1984 French Open.

Everywhere else--despite the most formidable forehand in the sport, despite a wiry 6-2 frame that enables him to cover the court like a greyhound, despite an almost flawless all-courts game--he had faltered.

The reviews were merciless.

Choker. Spineless. Yellow. Head case. Can’t win the big one.

Lendl heard them all. It wasn’t easy to ignore, but he tried.

“If I go by what is written about me I’d go crazy,” Lendl said.

Finally, Lendl found a way to fight back.

He went crazy on the court.

Against McEnroe, after a stumbling start, Lendl gradually revved into peak form. By the middle of the second set, he was well on the way toward answering the “What if?” questions that have followed him like a dark cloud.

What if . . . Lendl ever decided to come to the net?

What if . . . Lendl started aiming that thunderous forehand cross-court, instead of predictably down the line?

What if . . . Lendl took grasp of all his impressive skills and concentrated them into one afternoon’s effort?

Here’s what: A straight-set victory over one of the finest players tennis has ever seen, a four-time champion of this tournament.

“I was flying out there,” Lendl said. “It was the same feeling I had when I won the ’83 Masters--there is no ball I can’t get to, there is no shot I can’t hit.”

In past collapses in Grand Slam finals, this is the Lendl we have most often seen: Stubbornly sticking to the baseline, refusing to attack and volley when his passing shots were missing, getting burned by opponents who could read his mind like a billboard.

This was a different Lendl that McEnroe encountered. McEnroe would rush the net, expecting to eat up a forehand down the line--only to be left staggered when Lendl crossed him up by going cross-court.

This Lendl also took advantage of his potent serve--of the top 10 seeded players at the U.S. Open, only Kevin Curren and Boris Becker serve harder--by following his deliveries with strong, precise volleys. He approached the net 25 times in all, converting 16 into winners--a 64% success rate.

The difference? Lendl credited Tony Roche, his new coach, with a sizable assist.

“Tony has been working on my game, on my volleys, on my backhand slice, on my approach to the net,” Lendl said. “We watched videotapes of McEnroe playing me, and he (Roche) was telling me where to serve and where to hit my passing shots. He just gave me the confidence to be more aggressive.”

It took a while for Lendl’s aggressiveness to manifest itself. He looked overwhelmed at the outset, as McEnroe held his first four service games at love en route to a 5-2 lead. It took Lendl 40 minutes to score his first point in a McEnroe service game.

On first impression, it looked like the same old Ivan. Another U.S. Open final, another fold job.

If Lendl felt those same urges again, he discovered a way to cope this time.

“I think the worst thing is to be afraid of something,” he said. “The fear of losing, you can eliminate that fear in a few different ways.

“One of the ways is to imagine that you have lost it already, so you go there and you have nothing to lose and you live through the fear. Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine that. I have been through it so many times that I just say to myself, ‘Keep trying.’ ”

That mentality, coupled with a fatigued McEnroe, paved the way for a comeback by Lendl. Lendl finally broke McEnroe’s serve at 5-4, held on to force a tiebreaker, then won the tiebreaker with ease, 7-1.

The next two sets followed similar form: Lendl would break McEnroe’s serve once and defend his advantage with a deluge of winners.

Afterward, McEnroe praised his opponent. “It’s probably one of the best matches he’s ever played against me, once he got the break back (in the first set),” McEnroe said. “From that point on, it was probably as well as I’ve ever seen him play.”

But McEnroe also said a lack of classic Mac contributed to the easy victory. McEnroe said he was still feeling the effects of Saturday’s five-set marathon semi-final win over Mats Wilander.

“That took every ounce I had,” McEnroe said. “I’m so stiff and sore, that I just thought I gave my best performance I could under the circumstances.”

McEnroe then blasted CBS, which televised the U.S. Open, and the United States Tennis Assn. for creating such circumstances.

“I think it’s a major injustice to have us play for two straight days in a major championship,” McEnroe said. “You know that the semis and the finals are going to be the two toughest matches and they’re going to take the most out of you. It’s a shame that TV controls what we’d do at this point.

“I’d rather take less money and screw TV, for all I’m concerned. It’s more important to see the best tennis, not seeing two tired players out there. That’s what happened the last couple of years. I was affected more this year and he (Lendl) was more affected last year.

“Unfortunately, that’s a part of tennis right now. We don’t have enough cohesion as a player’s group, and the USTA’s too afraid of TV to make any changes.”

That was the most noise McEnroe made all afternoon. The racket he usually kicks up with his racket was strangely absent Sunday.

Lendl applied the silencer--to McEnroe, and perhaps to his long-standing critics, as well.

Earlier in the day, Martina Navratilova averted the ignominy of losing three U.S. Open finals in one tournament by splitting her matches in women’s and mixed doubles.

Navratilova, who lost to Mandlikova in the women’s singles final Saturday, also lost the women’s doubles title Sunday as she and Pam Shriver were upset by Claudia Kohde-Kilsch and Helena Sukova, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3.

However, Navratilova came back to team with Switzerland’s Heinz Gunthardt for a 6-3, 6-4 triumph over Elizabeth Smylie and John Fitzgerald in mixed doubles.

The boys singles championship was won by Santa Barbara’s Tim Trigueiro, who defeated Joey Blake of Henderson, Nev., 6-2, 6-3.