Not Even Crowd Can Stop Lendl : He Turns Back Pernfors to Silence Hostile Fans, Win French Open Title

Ivan Lendl had everything in the world going against him Sunday afternoon in the men’s final of the French Open at Roland Garros Stadium.

He was facing a fresh, young Swede, Mikael Pernfors, who came into the match full of vigor and enthusiasm.

He was facing a vociferous crowd which loved to side with the underdog--or any opponent of Lendl’s.

He was facing a no-win situation where ghosts of his past could rise to remind him he was once unable to handle Grand Slam pressure.

Would Lendl be able to handle center court, where his each and every move is being scrutinized by an unrelenting crowd? Or would he fold, as he did last year, blowing a 2-0 set lead to Mats Wilander and losing, 3-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2?

The answers would come soon enough. In 2 hours 45 minutes, Lendl defeated Pernfors, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, to win his 13th straight match and his second French Open title in three years.

Despite suffering from tendinitis in his knee, Lendl is 42-2 in 1986, losing only to Boris Becker in the Grand Prix final in Chicago and to Yannick Noah at the Tournament of Champions in Forest Hills, N.Y.

Success, particularly Sunday’s, where Lendl beat a formidable challenge, should have been a priceless moment worth savoring. Lendl should have been satisfied by what transpired.

Instead, he was disgusted.

He cannot understand why animated Parisians come out to jeer him on. He wants to understand, but he just can’t.

Sunday, he suggested this tumultuous relationship began because of his rivalry with Noah, France’s favorite court son. Lendl, from Czechoslovakia, defeated Noah in the 1982 Davis Cup quarterfinal competition in Paris.

He thinks the French have yet to forgive him. He probably is right.

“They make it difficult for me, there’s no question about it,” Lendl said. “I don’t know what it is, but next year I’m going to hire someone to do a survey. I think it is because Yannick and I have been rivals since we were 14.”

Whatever the reason, the French showed some emotion against the world’s No. 1-ranked player. Even before the match began, they were all over Lendl like a faulty lob at the net. During the five-minute warm-ups, they cheered when Lendl missed a shot. They booed when he made one. And Pernfors, a 22-year-old Swede who last year was ranked in the 400s, can do no wrong. Lendl was in for a rough day.

The audience continued the assault during match play, and Lendl often waited for silence before serving, which brought more whistles and pleas from the chair umpire for silence.

“I think it is very silly to whistle like that if someone is trying to concentrate,” Lendl said. “If they wanted to whistle for an hour, then they could have gone ahead. I’m not leaving Paris until Monday. I could have waited.

“The easiest place to play is Wimbledon. They’re quiet. I guess it has to do with British tradition.

“But to be fair, they (the French) were really with me when I beat John (McEnroe) in 1984. I couldn’t have won that match without them.”

Lendl said he used the crowd as a positive inducement to win his 41st of 48 singles matches in eight years of competition at the French Open.

“I wanted to win so badly, I was upset,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to fight till I die to win this thing.’ ”

Lendl didn’t have to go to such lengths to get the victory. He is the world’s best player because he can do so many things on so many surfaces against so many opponents.

Pernfors, the benefactor of the crowd support, played a superb final. He proved that his six victories here were not just one of those crazy things, that he can become the next in a long line of Swedish top 10 players.

And yet he lost in straight sets. This junk-ball pitcher, who can unload a Nolan Ryan pitch when you least expect it, met an opponent who was able to give it right back.

“I had to play my greatest tennis just to win a point,” Pernfors said. “I had to run more today than any other of my matches here.”

Pernfors, the 1984-85 NCAA singles champion from the University of Georgia, looked strong from the start. At 5-feet-8 and 150 pounds, he was able to match Lendl, who had one of the game’s most powerful forehands.

But in the fourth game of the first set, Pernfors’ first serve failed him, and that, as much as anything, eventually spelled his doom.

With the set 2-all and Pernfors gaining confidence with each passing shot and drop volley, Lendl finally found a crack. During a finesse-filled rally, Pernfors hit an easy overhead into the net. He then double faulted, giving Lendl his first service break and a 3-2 lead.

Then it was all Lendl, passing with ease, serving tough and reducing Pernfors to the status of a nice-try challenger.

Pernfors, who defeated Stefan Edberg, Martin Jaite, Boris Becker and Henri Leconte to reach the final, started the second set with renewed strength, taking a 2-0 lead after opening with a service break.

That was all the crowd needed to stir some excitement, and they let Pernfors hear their appreciation. Lendl could hear it, too. So, he fought that much harder.

He won the next nine games, a difficult feat on a slow surface such as clay. During the second set Lendl made Pernfors look foolish, something he has done to other players with regularity this year.

“I wanted to crawl up into the stands and hide during the middle of the second set,” Pernfors said. “He’s just so good. I was surprised at how good his backhand is, he doesn’t win a lot of points but it is consistent. He hits it real deep and then bounces it high. I couldn’t step around to use my forehand.

“After the first two sets, I really felt I wouldn’t be able to last four or five sets. But I felt good about playing well against him.”

Pernfors, however, is a fighter, too. And though he was down 3-0 in the third set, though he had lost nine straight games, he continued to play solid tennis, except for a first serve that betrayed him 12 of the last 18 times he served.

Just when it looked as if Lendl was turning the match into a rout, Pernfors rallied with the kind of zesty tennis that got him to the final. Suddenly he had a 4-3 lead. Suddenly, thoughts of last year’s final came roaring into Lendl’s focus.

But Lendl, without so much as a look of frustration, patiently got his game back and broke service twice to do what was expected from the beginning--beat the unseeded, No. 27-ranked Pernfors.

And so what if it wasn’t against a McEnroe, a Connors or a Wilander. It was the year’s first Grand Slam tournament and, in the final analysis, it was Lendl on the victory stand.

In the women’s doubles final Sunday, Martina Navratilova and Andrea Temesvari defeated Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini, 6-1, 6-2.