On the Run : After a Year of Disappointment, Ivan Lendl Has No Place to Hide With the U.S. Open About to Begin

Scenes from a disaster:

Ivan Lendl, his dark eyes seemingly sunk deeper than usual, jumps into his brown four-wheel - drive vehicle and drives off into the night. He has lost his fifth U.S. Open final, this one in four sets--two of them tiebreakers--to Boris Becker. Lendl sheds little light on his misfortune. “It’s quite unbelievable,” he says. “I don’t know what to say.”

It’s been nearly a year since Lendl, tennis’ most haunted, sent gravel flying on his hasty escape from the National Tennis Center. This brings us to one truth: About the only thing Lendl does faster than drive is conduct postmatch news conferences.

This year at Wimbledon, where he failed to win for the 11th time, he opened one meeting with the media this way: “Start asking questions, you’ve got nine minutes.”

Maybe it was just as well. Maybe, as at last year’s U.S. Open, Lendl didn’t quite know what to say.

Look at what has happened to him in the year since. It’s been like an Ivan the Terrible tour. He lost to Becker in the final at Stuttgart, West Germany; lost to Emilio Sanchez in the fourth round of the Lipton International Players Championship in Key Biscayne, Fla.; lost to Aaron Krickstein in the semifinals of the Japan Open. And a week after beating Becker in the final at Queens in London, he lost to Stefan Edberg in straight sets at Wimbledon.

Afterward, Edberg revealed the depth of his pity for Lendl. “I mean, I don’t feel bad at all,” Edberg said.

After Wimbledon, Lendl pulled out of two tournaments, claiming a knee injury. He showed up at New Haven, Conn., promptly lost his first match to 83rd-ranked MaliVai Washington and dropped to No. 3 in the rankings, behind Edberg and Becker.

Lendl’s reaction?

“It’s always disappointing to lose, any time.”

Expecting something not quite so tepid? Lendl uses colorful language about as often as he comes to the net, which happens only the three weeks he is playing at Queens and Wimbledon. With remarkably few exceptions, Lendl’s measured comments reflect the workmanlike nature of his game. He simply walks out there and slugs balls at opponents until their arms feel like sandbags. Nothing fancy, nothing extra. Simply hit the ball.

It’s always worked for him, until now. But these are unusual times for Lendl, who returns to the U.S. Open, beginning Monday at the National Tennis Center, struggling more than he has in nearly a decade. Lendl is third-seeded behind No. 1-ranked Edberg and No. 2 Becker. It’s the lowest he has been seeded since 1982, when he was third behind John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.

Lendl, 30, has won one tournament--Queens--since the indoor season last spring, and, although he did win the year’s first Grand Slam event, he didn’t have to finish the match to do it. Edberg suffered a pulled stomach muscle and retired in the third set in the Australian Open.

So when Lendl walks onto the court to play the U.S. Open, he will be a question mark for the first time in years. His confidence isn’t exactly shaken, but it is stirred. Even Lendl doesn’t quite know what to expect.

“As they always say, if I didn’t think I could win, I wouldn’t be playing,” Lendl said. “It’s going to be difficult, but I still think I have a chance, even though you think I’m an old . . . “

In other professional sports, players are in their prime at 30. But in tennis? Consider that McEnroe dropped from No. 4 to No. 21 in the year it took him to go from 30 to 31. Edberg, who has won twice at Wimbledon, is only 24, and Becker, who has won there three times, is 22. Andre Agassi is 20 and Michael Chang is 18.

But Lendl said he is past being concerned with his ranking or with how to win the affection of tennis fans who have been reluctant to embrace him. As for the U.S. Open, well, he has already won it three times, so what’s the big deal?

“I have nothing to prove at the Open,” Lendl said. “I’ve won it enough times. I’ve done well enough times. Of course, it would be nice to win it, (but) I wouldn’t say I’m playing extra hard because of it. I don’t think I can play any harder than before.”

Not harder, but maybe better. Against Becker in last year’s final, Lendl forced a first-set tiebreaker only to throw away his chances by losing the first five points. He routed Becker in the second set, 6-1, but lost the third set. He broke Becker’s serve but made a key double fault, losing his serve at love and blowing a chance to even the set.

Becker and Lendl went into a fourth-set tiebreaker, and Becker took a 5-4 lead with the next two points on his serve. There was little Lendl could do. The first was an ace, Becker’s 11th of the match, and the second--on match point--was a service winner down the middle that dribbled off Lendl’s racket.

Becker had his first Grand Slam title somewhere other than Wimbledon, and Lendl had his second consecutive loss in the final.

But that was then. This is now:

Playing the Volvo International in New Haven, his first tournament since Wimbledon, Lendl isn’t quite sure what to expect when he walks on the court to face 21-year-old Mal Washington, a pro for 11 months after leaving the University of Michigan as a sophomore. Lendl wins only five games and loses in straight sets. Washington says he was flustered at first because of playing Lendl: “It’s a bit difficult during the introductions when they start out, ‘On the chair’s left, winner of 8 7 tournaments’ and then they mention you won some college tournament.”

Lendl refers to his defeat by Washington as “that bad day in New Haven.”

To get ready for the U.S. Open, he played singles in a special event at Forest Hills. And, to log some match play, Lendl even played doubles with Henri Leconte, which has to be one of the strangest doubles teams in modern times--Lendl, straight as a ruler, teamed with Leconte, a lounge act in sneakers.

Oh, well, stranger things have happened, although one of them is not Lendl winning Wimbledon. A year ago, he lost to Becker in the semifinals after going ahead by a set and a break, then packed his rackets and charged off the court without waiting for Becker or bowing to the Royal Box.

This year, Lendl tried to avoid a similar result. He spent nearly three months refining his grass-court game with Coach Tony Roche. Playing on grass does not come naturally to Lendl, who hammers ground strokes from the base line. Grass court tennis consists of a big serve, a return and a volley. Usually, that’s all there is to it.

Rex Bellamy, former London Times tennis correspondent, referred to grass-court tennis this way: “It is much like a dachshund standing on its hind legs. At first it seems remarkable, then it becomes quite boring.”

Lendl worked harder than ever with Roche, an Australian grass-court expert. Besides the emphasis on volleying, ground strokes require a different technique, because the ball bounces so low on the closely cropped grass. Gene Scott, a former U.S. Davis Cup player, once described the Wimbledon grass as being cut “as close to death as possible.”

Lendl even skipped the French Open, much to the relief of eventual champion Andres Gomez of Ecuador, who nearly didn’t enter until he heard Lendl wouldn’t play.

“Then I believe I have a chance,” Gomez said.

Lendl rejoined the IBM/ATP tour and made his grass-court debut at the Queen’s Club in London, where he successfully defended his only title on grass.

Then came Wimbledon.

Edberg said he believed Lendl was at the top of his grass court game two weeks before with the victory at Queens.

“If you look at it, he played really well in Queens and maybe he peaked a little bit,” Edberg said. “I thought, looking at the situations, he’s going to lose the rhythm.”

His face flushed, Lendl bravely answered questions after losing to Edberg. Lendl was well aware that his only goal of 1990--to win Wimbledon--would not be reached.

When Edberg won at Cincinnati, Lendl fell to No. 2 in the rankings. When Lendl lost to Washington, Lendl fell to No. 3. But it is still Wimbledon, not necessarily his ranking, that consumes Lendl.

“To be No. 1, it would be nice,” he said. “I said what my priorities were for the year, and unfortunately they didn’t happen. But right now, I would like to win the Open. I feel if you win two Grand Slams, you should be No. 1--if nobody does the same, anyhow. But I don’t really worry about it.”

One player who will closely monitor Lendl’s play at the Open is Edberg, who believes Lendl may be affected by losing Wimbledon.

“I mean, it’s got to have an effect on him,” Edberg said. “He put so much pressure on himself by making Wimbledon his only goal. Maybe he will be able to put it out of his mind. I don’t know. If he does, it’s not going to be easy for him.”

Making money has been a breeze for Lendl. He has won $16.4 million, and that doesn’t include his appearance fees, guarantees or money from exhibitions.

When Forbes magazine listed the top 30 earners in sports for 1990, Lendl checked in at $5.3 million. Forbes counted projected tournament winnings, appearance and promotional fees, but not income from investments.

Lendl owns his own company, Spectrum Sports, in Greenwich, Conn., and has real estate in Florida, Paris and Prague, Czechoslovakia.

He holds a green card that permits him to live in the United States, but hopes to be granted citizenship by 1992.

At this stage in his life, there is change for Lendl that does not involve his career. Married to his longtime girlfriend, Samantha Frankel, he is the father of a 3-month-old daughter, Marika. The Lendls live in a 20-room Georgian mansion in Greenwich, a house made of stone behind a chain-link fence. It is a long way from Czechoslovakia.

Lendl, an only child, was born in the coal-mining city of Ostrava, in northern Czechoslovakia near the Polish border. Ostrava is sometimes called “the black city” because of all the coal soot from the smokestacks.

Lendl’s lawyer father, Jiri, was once ranked among the top 15 tennis players in the country. Olga Jenistova Lendlova, Lendl’s mother, is a secretary and was once ranked No. 2 in Czechoslovakia in singles.

By the time Lendl was 3, Olga began taking him along to her daily practice sessions. At 4, Lendl was hitting tennis balls against a wall with a wooden paddle. If he could not find someone to play, Lendl went back to the wall, which he didn’t really like.

“I couldn’t beat the wall,” Lendl once said.

Lendl’s parents quickly recognized their son’s ability and signed him up at their local sports club. Lendl became part of the so-called “Czech tennis factory,” which produced such stars as Jan Kodes, Martina Navratilova, Hana Mandlikova and Tomas Smid.

When he was 13, Lendl could beat his father. At 14, he could beat his mother. At 18, Lendl was the best junior player in the world, winning the junior titles at Wimbledon, the French Open and the Italian Open. He played his first U.S. Open in 1978 at 18 and lost in the first round, but he has either won it or lost in the final every year since 1982.

There are eight Grand Slam titles among Lendl’s 87 tournament championships, even if Wimbledon’s trophy remains elusive. Next year, Lendl said, he will probably prepare for Wimbledon in the same way he did this year.

This week and next, he will see what happens at the U.S. Open. But first, a question: Has he gotten over Wimbledon yet?

“Yeah, pretty much so,” he said. “I knew (losing) was a possibility even when I decided making it my goal was what I wanted to do. And I . . . just didn’t win. Stefan played well. He deserved to win and that’s the bottom line.

“You just can’t brood over it. You have to forget it and go full speed ahead.”

In the meantime, Lendl still has the four-wheel-drive vehicle. Better watch out for the spray of gravel this year, too.