Wilander Is Now A-No. 1 in New York : Swede Ends Lendl’s Reign With Marathon Victory in U.S. Open

They always said that Sweden’s Mats Wilander wanted to reach the forefront of men’s tennis by sneaking in the back door.

On Sunday, the door swung wide open at the U.S. Open--and Wilander walked in slowly . . . how about 4 hours and 54 minutes?--and he emerged through the door at the very front of men’s tennis.

For 3 years, Ivan Lendl ruled men’s tennis as the undisputed No. 1. Sunday, with Wilander’s dramatic 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Lendl in the Open final there is no dispute that the 24-year-old Wilander is the worthy successor to Lendl.

Here’s how worthy:

In 1988, Wilander won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments. He beat Pat Cash in five tense sets to win the Australian Open in January. At Paris, Wilander dispatched Henri Leconte with relative ease. Now, at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, the No. 2-seeded Wilander defeated the three-time defending champion. His only shortcoming in Grand Slams this year came against the elusive Miloslav Mecir at Wimbledon in the quarterfinals.

Also, the victory here gives the Swedes a new distinction, actually two more firsts. Wilander is the first Swedish player to win the U.S. Open. Yes, somewhere, Bjorn Borg must be smiling. The championship also kept all of the Grand Slams in the country as Stefan Edberg won the other jewel, at Wimbledon.

Now today, when the Assn. of Tennis Professionals (ATP) computer spits out the new numbers, Wilander will sit alone at the top, thus ending Lendl’s run of 156 consecutive weeks as the best player in men’s tennis.

“It feels, for sure, the best victory I’ve ever had,” Wilander said. “I think it’s even better than the first Paris title that I won. To me, this match meant so much, because Ivan has won this so many times, and I was close last year.

“I’m going to be No. 1 on the ATP rankings. Summing that all up, I think that this is the biggest match that I ever played.”

For Lendl, 1988 has to be considered one of his biggest disappointments, looking at it as a whole. He began the year openly talking about winning a Grand Slam. What happened was that Lendl didn’t win a single Grand Slam title and only reached the final in one of the four.

“It’s tough, it was a tough year for me,” said Lendl. “I just have to accept it and go on to the next one. That’s the only thing I can do. If I cry over spilled milk, I won’t achieve anything.”

To Lendl, losing the No. 1 spot paled in comparison to his performances in Grand Slam events in 1988.

“It’s not the most important thing right now,” he said. “The most important thing is to be mentally and physically ready for next year, and to worry about the Australian Open.”

Wilander said if Lendl had won on Sunday it would have been one of the greatest efforts because of Lendl’s injury-plagued year. Nevertheless, Lendl never goes down quickly and the Open final was no exception.

For the first three sets, Lendl-Wilander looked like a repeat of the worst of their 1987 Open final. Lendl, mercifully, won that one in four sets but it took 4 hours and 47 minutes.

“My career was shorter than this match,” said CBS’s Mary Carillo in the third set on Sunday.

In all, this one took 7 whole minutes longer than last year but the quality in the final two sets was on a much higher level. The Wilander of 1987 let Lendl dictate the pace and control the match tempo. Sunday, Wilander mixed it up more effectively, occasionally playing serve-and-volley on a handful of points to keep Lendl guessing.

Essentially, the final could be broken down into three parts, with various plot twists and turns. Again, if you missed a set, no problem. Ivan and Mats were plenty obliging as they kept the fans waiting for the denouement.

Wilander could have ended it much sooner had he not squandered a 4-1 second-set lead, losing five straight games to drop the set. From then on, Lendl took over until the third. Wilander regained control until the end of the fourth. There, Lendl reasserted himself at 5-5 as Wilander came within two points of serving for the match. Lendl won the fourth as he broke Wilander on his third break point opportunity, winning it with a forehand volley.

The crucial part finally came in the sixth game of the fifth with Wilander down 2-3 and serving. At 15-30, Lendl and Wilander had a rapid fire exchange of four volleys at the net with Wilander seizing the point when Lendl smacked a forehand volley wide. Lendl could have had two break points to go up 4-2, but Wilander made it 30-30 with the volley and won the game.

“I kept hanging in there,” Lendl said. “I had a chance to win it. We had that volley exchange when I popped the volley wide. Had I made that, maybe I would have broken.”

Said Wilander: “I think that was the key in the fifth. I think that gave me a lot of confidence when I was at the net. Obviously, for him, he must have felt pretty badly after that.”

In the very next game, Wilander used his momentum and broke Lendl at 15 with a forehand passing shot down the line. Three games later, Wilander won it on his second match point when he hit a good first serve, came in, and watched Lendl lose the match with a backhand return into the net.

Wilander raised his arms in victory and savored the moment for several seconds before a kid came toward him on the court with a Swedish flag.

It was a touching moment for a momentous occasion. Here was the guy, who, three years ago at the Open said he wasn’t ready to be No. 1. John McEnroe openly doubted whether Wilander would ever make it, saying he wanted to sneak in the back door without any of the accompanying pressures.

To Wilander, that’s the American way, not the Swedish way. When he was ready to challenge for No. 1, rather than letting his words speak loudly, Wilander let his game do the job.

Sweden’s preeminent tennis journalist, Bjorn Hellberg, has known the new Open champion since Wilander’s early teens and was holding court with the American press afterward.

“He doesn’t announce that he wants to be No. 1,” Hellberg said. “He’s a very smart man. He wanted to prove it on the court. He did want it inside. What he said with his mouth was different from what he was thinking in the back of his head.”