Lendl, Mecir Appear to Be on a Collision Course : Their Semifinal Opponents, Muster and Gunnarsson, Not Expected to Match Up

What kind of Grand Slam is this? Ivan Lendl is the only one of the top eight seeded players left in the men’s singles semifinals.

Miloslav Mecir, whose beard gets longer and whose game gets better each day, had an explanation:

“It just happened,” Mecir said.

So there you have it. By chance--or by upset--the Australian Open semifinals have taken on an ordinary look. A Lendl-Mecir final seems likely, although they both have to win first.

Their opponents? Lendl plays Thomas Muster, the finest player in all of Austria. Tennis, Muster said, really isn’t emphasized in his country.

“Skiing and soccer are more important,” said Muster, who sometimes practices with Lendl.

On form, the second-seeded Lendl should have a nice practice while beating 11th-seeded Muster, who is ranked No. 15 in the world.

Mecir seems headed toward a semifinal mismatch against Jan Gunnarsson, who is ranked 10th in Sweden. Mecir is No. 13 in the world.

So it falls to Gunnarsson to carry the recent Swedish tradition of winning this event. Either Mats Wilander or Stefan Edberg has won the Open each of the last 5 years.

Gunnarsson, whose previous best Grand Slam finish was in the 1984 French Open, where he gained the quarterfinals, apparently isn’t too concerned about playing Mecir.

“In the semifinals, anybody can win, I think,” he said. “OK, I’m not the favorite, but I think I have a chance.”

Gunnarsson upset sixth-seeded Henri Leconte in the first round and since then the pressure has been off, so he has tried to enjoy himself. With his girlfriend and their 5-year-old daughter, Anna, Gunnarsson has busily been doing the city, the zoo and the beaches.

“Probably after this week, I’m dead,” he said.

Probably after playing Mecir, he’s gone, too. But then, one never knows about Mecir. The lanky Czech has a reputation for the unusual on the court and sometimes it’s a question of which Milo will show up.

Although he is regarded as one of the world’s most skilled players, Mecir sometimes doesn’t feel like playing.

John McEnroe was already looking ahead to how Mecir would react in a final against Lendl.

“You never know with Mecir,” McEnroe said. “He could lose badly, but he could give Lendl one hell of a match. It depends on the day, what side of the bed he wakes up on.”

Mecir presents other problems when he decides to play. He enjoys a reputation for driving Mats Wilander crazy because of his penchant for unorthodox shots.

“He is playing a strange game,” Gunnarsson said. “He is playing the ball where you don’t expect it to come--in the wrong corner--he is playing inside-out like this all the time. He gets a lot of angles. I don’t think there’s any top-ranked player who plays like him.”

Outside of Lendl, no one has played better here than Mecir, who has lost only 1 set in his 5 matches. But if he has been normal on the court, Mecir continues to hit something of the odd ball off it.

Mecir’s postmatch news conferences have been stunningly unconventional. A sample:

Question: How will you prepare for Gunnarsson?

Answer: I just prepare. No problem.

Q: You once said you felt at ease in certain places, like Australia, because you felt nearer to nature. Would you expand on that?

A: I like nature more. I think each country has different nature. And the buildings, sometimes they’re made of different architecture. But nature is something different. You cannot change it just like that. It has to be there for a long time.

Q: How would you describe the secret of your success?

A: To feel good.

Q: Is there a question of consistency for you?

A: Sometimes it is, sometimes not.

Mecir stories abound. Once he flew from Europe to play an exhibition in Tokyo when he had a bad cold. Mecir was asked why he would travel so far if he was sick.

“I was on the plane and I started to sneeze,” Mecir said. “It was hard to get off.”

Another time, after Mecir revealed that he enjoyed fishing, he was continually asked about his passion for fishing.

In fact, Mecir is only an occasional angler, but he soon regretted being asked time and time again about spending so much time fishing. Mecir told friends that if he said he’d read a book, he would be called an intellectual.

Reporters at the 1987 French Open were having no luck in getting Mecir to talk about himself and he continued to give short answers.

An exasperated reporter suggested to Mecir that instead of being asked more silly questions, what single question would he like to be asked?

“That,” said Mecir, “is the silliest question of them all.”