Lendl Regains No. 1 Spot : He’s Back on Top After Beating Mecir in Australian Final

On a blazing hot Sunday afternoon in the dead of summer on the continent Down Under, Ivan Lendl climbed back on top of the tennis world once again.

Lendl won his first Australian Open in a devastating display, defeating fellow Czech Miloslav Mecir, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2, to reclaim the world’s No. 1-ranking from Mats Wilander.

“I didn’t come here to try to be No. 1,” Lendl said. “It means a lot to be No. 1, but winning this title means so much more.”

Lendl’s seventh Grand Slam title, his first since he beat Wilander in the 1987 U.S. Open, was marked by his continued domination of Mecir, who has won only 1 of their 6 encounters.

The 2-hour 1-minute final in the first Grand Slam of the year was worth $140,000 to Lendl.

As expected, the match was decided at the baseline and the service line, but not at the net, which Lendl and Mecir rarely attacked.

Lendl, an advocate of hard groundstrokes and endurance, had to change his game for Mecir by taking some pace off the ball.

“It’s not pretty, but it worked against Milos,” Lendl said. “As a matter of fact, it was downright ugly.”

Lendl had 14 aces, but Mecir’s serve almost totally abandoned him. He had only 1 ace, committed 10 double faults and lost 9 service games.

“I just couldn’t find the rhythm,” Mecir said. “I couldn’t hit the ball where I wanted to.”

Lendl said he did not expect to get so many free points on Mecir’s serve.

“I haven’t seen him serve this bad for a long, long time,” Lendl said. “I couldn’t believe my luck.”

Yet, the ease in which Lendl dispatched the world’s 13th-ranked player made it seem unlikely that Mecir would have won even on a good day.

Down 2 sets and 0-3 in the third, Mecir had one last chance. Lendl broke Mecir to 3-2, but he lost his serve again. However, Mecir held 2 break points with Lendl serving at 4-2 and was unable to take advantage.

Lendl broke Mecir a final time even though Mecir was fighting to stay in the match at 2-5. But Mecir double-faulted to 0-30, saved one match point at 15-40, then gave in on the second.

Lendl watched Mecir dump a forehand into the net, then raised both arms in triumph.

“I don’t have to tell you how badly I wanted to win this tournament,” he said.

The surface temperature of Center Court was 134 degrees. Both Lendl and Mecir wore baseball caps backward with the bills shading their necks from the sun.

Mecir turned his cap around to return serve, but that could not protect him from Lendl’s heat.

Mecir got an early break when Lendl lost his serve at love in the third game, but Lendl broke back quickly to 2-2. On break point, Lendl took some pace off the ball and Mecir sent a backhand into the net from the baseline.

Lendl held in the fifth game, aided by back-to-back aces, and forced Mecir into another error, a forehand into the tape, at game point.

Lendl went up a break to 4-2 when Mecir served his third and fourth double-faults of the set and committed a backhand error at the first break point.

The first set went to Lendl, 6-2, when he broke Mecir’s serve a third time. Mecir fought off one set point, but double-faulted to give Lendl another chance. Lendl pinned Mecir in the corner with a forehand and forced him to send a crosscourt backhand long on the second set point.

In the early going, Lendl seemed to be able to reach back for a big serve when he needed it the most. Down 0-40 in the first game of the second set, Lendl served an ace to deuce and held with another ace.

Lendl held again in the third game after losing the first 2 points, but he bailed himself out with his serve. Mecir had no such luck.

He went down a break in the fourth game of the second set, double-faulting to give Lendl a third break point. Lendl cashed in and went ahead, 3-1, when Mecir committed an unforced error from the baseline.

Lendl broke Mecir a fifth time to take a 5-1 lead, the key point coming on Lendl’s forehand winner off a weak second serve that provided a break point. But Mecir broke back at love as Lendl was serving for the set.

Mecir didn’t stay in the set for long. Again, his serve deserted him, which also seemed to affect the rest of his game. Lendl broke Mecir for the sixth time to close out the second set, 6-2. Mecir, who served his seventh double-fault, committed 3 consecutive unforced errors to fall into an even deeper hole.

Mecir reached the second Grand Slam final of his career in smooth, if not spectacular fashion, although he seemed to creep into the semifinals before anyone noticed.

Mecir lost only one set in 7 matches, that to Australian Mark Kratzmann, 22, in the second round, the same round that Mecir got his biggest break when No. 1-seeded Wilander was upset by Ramesh Krishnan of India.

With Yannick Noah ousted in the first round and Boris Becker out in the fourth round, Mecir’s half of the draw quickly became less challenging. To reach the final against Lendl, Mecir defeated Thierry Champion, Kratzmann, Jason Stoltenberg, Christo Van Rensburg, Goran Ivanisevic and Jan Gunnarsson. None were seeded.

Lendl, who had a difficult time beating the heat as well as Thomas Muster in a 4-set semifinal, seemed to be reaching a peak as the tournament progressed.

Australian Open Notes

The top-seeded team of Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver won their seventh Australian Open women’s doubles title Sunday with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Patty Fendick and Jill Hetherington. Shriver and Navratilova’s victory was their 20th Grand Slam doubles title: 7 Australian Opens, 5 Wimbledons, 4 U.S. Opens, 4 French Opens. They have won the Grand Slam of doubles 4 times. Navratilova said she will return next year.

In the mixed doubles, American Jim Pugh and Czech Jana Novotna defeated Texans Sherwood Stewart and Zina Garrison, 6-3, 6-4. Pugh had teamed with Rick Leach to win the men’s doubles title. . . . Niklas Kulti of Sweden defeated Australian Todd Woodbridge, 6-2, 6-0, to win the boys’ singles title. Kim Kessaris of Hendersonville, N.C., defeated Andrea Farley of Cincinnati, 6-1, 6-2, to win the girls’ singles title.