It’s All Cat and Mouse to Mecir : He Lulls Foes Into Losses

Before Miloslav Mecir won the World Championship Tennis final against John McEnroe in Dallas last year, he warmed up by playing baseball with a Czechoslovakian friend in his hotel room. The balls were apples and grapefruit from a bowl.

Other times he amuses himself with spark-spewing toy cars, lying with his 6-foot 3-inch frame stretched across the floor, grinning as he sharpens his killer instinct. At 23, Mecir doesn’t want to be all grown up.

Boris Becker thinks his rival is odd. When the two-time Wimbledon champion lost to Mecir two years ago in the U.S. Open, all Becker could say was: “He plays sometimes as if he just wanted to warm up.”

That style can put pressure on Mecir’s opponents. His apparent lethargy on the court is deceptive, like the playful hesitancy of a cat cornering a mouse, which is why players call him Big Cat.

“A loss to Mecir is not a quick death,” says Canadian pro Glenn Michibata. “It’s a slow hemorrhage.”

Mecir’s method is unmistakable. Nobody else gets to the ball as early, and nobody else reveals as late where the return is headed, preferably in the direction opposite where his opponent is running.

When an opponent manages to run him around, though, Mecir makes it clear why he’s called Big Cat.

In an exchange in last year’s Lipton International, Mecir answered a hard diagonal forehand from Ivan Lendl with an amazing sprint to the edge of the stands and an unbeatable return.

Today, Mecir meets Jay Berger of Plantation, Fla., in the quarterfinals of the Lipton International.

On good days, Mecir can turn a performance into a work of art. On bad days, he looks miserable.

“I just lose interest when my favorite shots don’t come,” he said.

On the professional tennis circuit, he is called a mood player, someone who plays because he likes it, but not obsessively.

Eating at a fine London restaurant during the Wimbledon tournament, Mecir once made the waiter bring a half-liter of milk to accompany his chateaubriand.

An anecdote such as this, however, would never come from the taciturn Mecir himself, who has been known to disappear into a bathroom for half an hour at a time when journalists surprise him and no other exit is available.

“I like the press people best who come and then leave again, without asking any questions,” Mecir told reporters in heavily accented English. “Write about me what others have already written.”

His silence is one of the reasons that published Mecir stories tend to be a mixture of fact and fantasy.

It is true that Mecir has a wife named Petra and a baby boy named Miloslav. It is also true that Big Cat is a dedicated angler, and that he likes to play a minor tournament in Kitzbuhel, Austria, because the hotel is near some exceptional trout waters.

It is also true that he rarely trains.

“I play in so many tournaments, I don’t need any more training,” he says.

He is also the only high-ranking player in the world without a coach.

“When a coach starts to hone my style, he takes my creativity away,” Mecir says.

It may be true that before big matches he falls asleep, undisturbed by the bustle around him, or eats potato salad with mayonnaise by the pound.

It is not true that he owns a studio in Paris. Mecir’s apartment is in Prague. And it is absolutely untrue that money is of no interest to him, despite the way he casually stuffs prize money into his pants pocket or a plastic bag.

Mecir has become a millionaire and not unhappily. He was third in prize money last year with $1,205,326, behind countryman Lendl, $2,003,658, and Stefan Edberg of Sweden, $1,587,567.

The former business student knows his dollars are worth much more in socialist Czechoslovakia than in the West, so it is not only a love of home and country that keeps him from following the example of emigrants Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova.

Since last year, Mecir has been accompanied by a manager, Ivan Foltyn, an emigre Czech and a jeans designer. In hotel hallways they make quite a contrast, the reserved Mecir and the colorful and loud Foltyn, who loves a show.

Mecir, however, can be lively, even loud, in private, according to the few people who know him well. His sense of humor even appears now and then during press conferences, when ironic comments come up as smoothly as his forehand.

“How much does the wind influence his shots?” a reporter asked.

“How much? Perhaps 3 feet,” Mecir said.

And which fish would he most like to catch?

“Ivan Lendl,” he replied.