Not Even Flu Can Get the Best of Lendl : He Beats Wilander for Title in 4 Hours and 47 Minutes

For almost every loser at the U.S. Open, there was a reason he or she didn’t win the championship.

Jimmy Connors? He was hobbled by an injured right foot. Steffi Graf? Oh, yeah, the 18-year-old West German acted as though she was the first player ever to catch a cold. Pat Cash? Obviously, it was the strain of playing three tournaments in the last two months. Boris Becker? His ailments were physical and psychological. An injured leg, an injured ankle, and an injured psyche.

Through all of this, Ivan Lendl didn’t say a word, advancing to the men’s final without losing a set and making no excuses. And, on the surface, Lendl’s 6-7, 6-0, 7-6, 6-4 victory over Mats Wilander in the U.S. Open singles championship Monday at the National Tennis Center looked quite simple. Actually, it was anything but.

The players’ locker rooms here had become sick wards. But unbeknown to most was that Lendl had fallen prey to illness, too.

More than almost any other player, Lendl is proud of his fitness. Others may have more talent, Lendl says, but he can claim endurance as something he has over the others.

Monday, however, Lendl was playing without that, too. For the last four days, he has had the flu. If it had been any other tournament than a Grand Slam, Lendl said he wouldn’t have been able to play Saturday or Monday.

Then, helped by Sunday’s rainout, Lendl proceeded to stay on the court for Monday’s 4-hour, 47-minute match against Wilander. It is believed to be the longest U.S. Open men’s singles final.

To put it into perspective, the Lendl-Wilander final was 33 minutes longer than the five-set match between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg in the 1980 final.

After it was over, Lendl put his hands to his head in shock, not quite believing he had won the tournament. At times, Lendl said, he was almost on the verge of falling over between points.

“No, I just didn’t expect to last that long with Mats,” said Lendl, who won his third straight Open title. “I can’t believe I won this match today.”

If anything, the Wilander-Lendl contest was more grueling than their final at the French Open in June, which Lendl won in four sets. The base line rallies between the two were so long, and the forays to the net so few, the Stadium Court seemed as if it had turned to clay.

And, Wilander, normally the epitome of a subdued Swede, seemed like a changed man on Monday. He pumped his fists after big points, and essentially could have been mistaken for a younger Jimmy Connors.

“I was really pumped up this whole tournament,” said Wilander, who has two French and two Australian Open titles to his credit. “Especially today, I was always trying. And I felt in the beginning it was important to be really pumped. Because Monday finals are not easy to play because you feel like the tournament is over and most of the people have gone home.

“And the stadium is not full. I told myself to get pumped and not to look around at the stadium, and just try to concentrate.”

From start to finish, Wilander was able to maintain that intensity. Which was no easy task because the first set lasted 1 1/2 hours, and the third took 1 hours 40 minutes. If it hadn’t been for the 28-minute second set, Wilander and Lendl might have approached the length of the McEnroe-Becker Davis Cup epic earlier this summer, which went 6 hours 40 minutes.

And, one thing to remember is that Davis Cup matches don’t have tiebreakers. Frequently, in their long series, which Lendl leads 12-6, Wilander and Lendl have had to play tiebreakers. Before Monday, Wilander had taken just one from Lendl in seven attempts, and that was back in 1982.

Wilander stopped that streak in the first set, winning the tiebreaker, 9-7. He rallied from an 0-2 deficit and won three straight points. At 5-6, with Lendl serving, Wilander reached his first set point. But Lendl pulled even when he hit a good first serve that Wilander punched long.

Then, after Lendl hit a forehand volley winner, he had his first set point. However, Wilander tied it at 7-7 when he hit a forehand passing shot down the line. Two points later, Wilander had the first set as Lendl hit a forehand wide. It was a close call and Lendl felt it went against him, so he protested to chair umpire Richard Kaufman.

It didn’t do any good. Still angry, Lendl sat down on the change-over and shook his head. But the anger must have helped him because he broke Wilander in the very next game, and proceeded to win the next six games to take the second set, 6-0, and go up 1-0 in the third.

“Once I lost the first set, I was extremely disappointed,” Lendl said. “Then, for some reason, all of a sudden Mats made some errors and I jumped into a lead. Once I got the second break, he almost gave me the set.”

Later, Wilander had his opportunities to win the third set, so it might have appeared he squandered his chances to take the match by going down so meekly in the second. Lendl, though, didn’t agree with that assessment.

“I don’t think he cost himself,” he said. “He came up with some great shots in the third set. Whatever he gave up, he gained back.”

The extra snap returned to Wilander’s game, and his cause was helped, in part, by a sagging Lendl.

By this time, Lendl was clearly struggling. He wasn’t able to hit overheads, often forced to take them on the bounce.

“I had to try to keep my emotions up,” Lendl said. “I would feel terrible, almost falling over, for a few points. And the next few points, I’d feel great. Then I would feel lousy.”

It looked as though Wilander had the match in control when he reached double set point at 6-5, with Lendl serving. But Lendl came up with his best service game of the match, hitting an ace to avert the first set point and forcing a weak return from Wilander, which he was able to volley, on the second. Then, Lendl hit two straight service winners to send it to a tiebreaker.

His strong run of shot-making continued in the tiebreaker as he won it, 7-4. Again, Wilander fell behind, this time, 4-0, before he started to rally. However, Lendl had too much of a lead and again finished with strong serves and took a two-sets-to-one lead with an ace.

The fourth set was more of the same. Lendl would falter, then come back stronger than ever. Wilander wasn’t able to break him in the final set and, actually, had only three chances to do so. In the 10th game, Lendl finally had his chance to end the match.

It took two match points before Lendl won it, and Wilander had two game points, also. The match seemed as if it would never end.

On his first match point, Lendl missed a backhand return. Then, he missed an easy smash to give Wilander a game point. Obviously distraught, Lendl dropped his racket in disbelief at having missed such a simple shot.

However, Wilander missed a forehand volley and, two points later, Lendl had his third U.S. Open title and sixth Grand Slam championship when Wilander hit a backhand down the line wide.

“It’s something I’ve never dreamed of,” Lendl said. “If someone had told me three years ago, I would win three in a row after I’d lost the third (Open) in a row, I wouldn’t have believed it. I would have thought the person was crazy.”

He’s right. Back in 1984, when Lendl crumbled in the final against Connors, few thought he would ever win at the National Tennis Center. He was called him a player without guts. And, somehow, Lendl’s third straight title here was extra special because he didn’t have anything else left Monday.

Notes

Ivan Lendl won $250,000, which puts him over the $11-million mark in career-prize money. Mats Wilander, who had never reached a U.S. Open final, received $125,000 for the second-place finish. . . . Lendl has lost just three sets in the last three Opens. He was trying to become the first player since Neale Fraser (1960) to go through the tournament without losing a set.. . . Martina Navratilova completed her “triple crown” at the U.S. Open on Monday. The last time a woman completed a triple at a Grand Slam event was when Billie Jean King did it at Wimbledon in 1973. Margaret Court, in 1970, was the last player to do it at the U.S. Open. Navratilova had defeated Steffi Graf, 7-6, 6-1, in the women’s singles final on Saturday. She teamed with Pam Shriver to defeat Kathy Jordan and Liz Smylie, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, in the women’s doubles final Monday. Finally, Navratilova and Emilio Sanchez of Spain beat the American team of Betsy Nagelsen and Paul Annacone in mixed doubles, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. The third-set tiebreaker was 14-12, and Navratilova and Sanchez needed seven match points before winning. Annacone and Nagelsen held two match points. Appropriately, Navratilova hit the winning volley.