Wimbledon Sees a Positive Cash Flow : 22-Year-Old Australian Hugs Father in Stands After Winning

Princess Diana whipped on her sunglasses, the white-frame Elton John models. The Duke of Kent mercifully gave the gentlemen in the Royal Box the OK to remove their coats. The first-aid station geared up to handle the heat victims, who would soon begin dropping at a rate of one per minute, those who could find dropping room. Ivan Lendl brought his little Tupperware container of ice cubes, to cool his drinks on changeovers.

It was going to be a hot Sunday afternoon at Wimbledon.

Into this Centre Court caldron of stifling heat and pressure swaggered Pat Cash, great-great-grandson of an Australian bushranger (highwayman), John Wayne fan and all-around yobbo (the Aussie equivalent of a good ol’ boy), and brashly stroked himself into the tennis history books and the hearts of the fans.

The 22-year-old Cash serve-and-volleyed Lendl silly, 7-6, 6-2, 7-5. It was a match between an animal and a machine, and the machine broke down in the heat and the humility.

When it was over, Cash amazed the fans by climbing halfway up the packed grandstands to hug and kiss his family and friends.

The champ, who wears an earring and a checkered headband, did not high-five the Duchess of Kent when she presented him the trophy, but you get the idea.

“He has his own style,” said dad Cash, proudly.

He also has 155,000 pounds (about $260,000) and a new identity, champion of the 101st Wimbledon. “I’m thrilled to bits,” Cash said after his 2-hour 45-minute dismantling of the world’s top-ranked tennis player

Cash, 11th-seeded here, became the first Australian to win Wimbledon since John Newcombe in 1971, and the first man to win the championship match in straight sets since, well, since last year, when Boris Becker did it to Lendl.

Anyone with the slightest bit of human compassion had to cringe at the sight of the iron-willed Lendl crumbling on Centre Court, dying an agonizing tennis death.

He slammed his racket into the grass twice in the second set, once after a double-double fault, and seemed on the verge of crying when the match began to slip beyond his control.

Imagine Lendl’s frustration in the second set, when he won zero points off Cash’s serve and had his own serve broken twice. Imagine Lendl’s frustration when his volley, the shot he has slaved two years to perfect, just for this tournament, broke down completely under relentless pressure from Cash.

Choking is a word that should not be carelessly applied, but the BBC-TV announcers used it repeatedly in reference to Lendl.

In the final set, Lendl hanging in at 5-5 and serving, hit a backhand volley wide, a forehand volley wide on a shot his girlfriend Samantha could have put away, netted a backhand volley and then netted a forehand volley.

Welcome to death volley.

Cash, winner now of 4 Grand Prix tour events to Lendl’s 64, said he was so nervous Sunday morning when he went to practice that his legs felt like jelly.

“The last day and a half have been terrible,” Cash said. “I was watching TV--you know they’ve really got lousy TV shows here in England. Things were going around and around in my mind. I had the butterflies for a whole day.

“After I got the first game (with three service winners), I felt a big relief and I immediately got into a good rhythm.”

And Lendl quickly developed a severe Cash-flow problem.

Cash covers the tennis court like Ozzie Smith covers shortstop. He makes tennis look like beach volleyball. He would be a killer defensive back in the NFL. In fact, Cash’s best sport when he was a schoolboy was Australian-rules football.

Where Lendl is mechanical and thoughtful, Cash is improvisational and instinctive. In Hollywood terms, this was The Natural vs. The Un-Nutty Professor.

From the start, Lendl was a bundle of nerves and fidgets, knocking imaginary mud out of his shoe soles, powdering his racket handle, fiddling with the tennis balls like Capt. Queeg, and constantly plucking his racket strings. He might as well have been trying to tune a dime-store guitar.

Lendl was struggling from the start. He fought off five break points in the second game of the match, escaping with two service winners and a backhand volley.

Cash took him to five deuces and one set point in the 10th game, but Lendl, his nerve and serve still intact, escaped again, this time with ace, service winner and ace. The man didn’t get to No. 1 on the tennis hit parade by being a pushover.

In the tiebreaker, Lendl showed his courage again, spotting Cash a 6-1 lead and storming back to 6-5, before Cash began applying the ultimately fatal choke-hold with an unreturnable serve to Lendl’s backhand.

Lendl came unglued for good in the second set, losing serve in the third game when Cash lobbed him beautifully twice, and Lendl bungled two volleys into the net.

For Lendl fans the fifth game was particularly ugly. Just when he seemed to have his serve going, and was at ad-point, he double-faulted back-to-back. He recovered to fight off two break points but lost the game when he followed two of his serves to the net, only to have Cash win both points with pinpoint backhand passing shots.

“He (Cash) played the perfect second set,” said Cash’s coach, Ian Barclay. “To never lose a point on his serve, at Wimbledon, in the finals. The name of the game is pressure. Make the other guy make the mistakes. The other guy is No. 1 in the world, so he makes fewer mistakes than anyone. But Patrick just attacked.”

Lendl was attacking back in the third set, and Cash’s magic seemed to be fading, until Lendl double-faulted at 5-3 and 30-40.

Cash went 8-0 on his last eight serve points to send Lendl packing.

This was simply a classic serve-and-volley match, and that’s Cash’s game. The grass was fast, fried by the sun (80-degrees-plus Sunday) and worn to a fine brown fuzz, less lush than the nap on a pool table. Lendl has worked like a dog to overcome his deficiencies on grass, but Cash never had any to overcome. This fast track was definitely to his advantage. To counteract Cash’s big first serve, Lendl moved a step or two deeper, but this made him more vulnerable to Cash’s net charges.

Not only did Cash outserve Lendl, allowing him only 15 points off serve all afternoon, but Cash also carved up Lendl’s serve nicely.

“I thought he wouldn’t return that well,” Lendl said.

Cash had been doing his homework.

“I see on the telly (television) his best serve is wide to the backhand,” Cash said. “I was a little prepared for that. I also had a go at his second serve. The strength of my game over the two weeks has been my return.”

Barclay had stressed to Cash the importance of getting Lendl’s serve back, across the net, no matter what.

“He told me, ‘Anything back is a bonus,’ Cash said. “Hell, I’ll kick it over, do whatever it takes.”

That’s the Cash spirit, which turned the post-match festivities into a holiday for yobbos everywhere.

Lendl, following Wimbledon protocol like the good soldier he is, stayed on Centre Court while Cash was climbing through the stands, chit-chatting with the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and mugging with the trophy.

“They asked me to stay,” Lendl said. “I believe the person who finish second shouldn’t be there. He should be allowed to leave. It’s a miserable feeling.”