The Outsider

As the French Open is about to get underway, it's only fitting to acknowledge the man who pretty clearly has the second-best record on clay (after Borg) in the Open era: Ivan Lendl. In terms of issues we've been bandying about here lately (no more Warrior Moment narratives, I promise, although that French Open final vs. Mcen - oh, never mind. . .).

Lendl remains the most convincing proof that you don't need to have a good "clay-court game" to win at Roland Garros. You just need a good game. You can find my thoughts on Lendl on that score at this recent ESPN post and at this recent TW post.

Lendl was enormously respected and feared, but never loved (which was just fine by him). Among all the dominant Open-era champs - and this guy won more majors than his main rival, John McEnroe - he is the least cherished.  It's a shame, even though Lendl tended to bring the scorn upon himself with his borderline perverse embrace of the "outsider" role. Yet his mettle as a champion with a deep respect for the game - in every sense - was as laudable and honorable a stance as any player ever took.

Remember, Lendl declared at the mid-point of his career that winning Wimbledon was his goal (he had already won each of the other majors) and he made a herculean effort to realize that ambition, recruiting Tony Roche as his coach to oversee his quest. Given the fact that he had an awesome clay-court record and appeared in a stunning eight consecutive U.S. Open finals (he won the title three times),his willingness to make that effort to win Wimbledon was heroic - and utterly Lendlian.

Lendl failed to win Wimbledon, in my opinion, for a single reason. He did not move well enough, although he was faster than his sometimes clumsy movements suggested. Slower surfaces, including fast indoor carpet with its true bounce, gave him that extra bit of time he needed to employ to fulll effect  his sledgehammer forehand and versatile, one-handed backhand. I once sat courtside at Madison Square Garden for a McEnroe-Lendl match and, shutting my eyes, just listened. I heard the squealing of a thousand mice and heavy, thudding footfalls from Lendl's side of the net - but never a sound from McEnroe's.

Lendl won eight majors, none on conspicuous natural talent on the order of Federer's, and his 19 Grand Slam final appearances is the benchmark for men. As a child, his mother used to take him to the tennis court and tether him like a little dog to a netpost. He was often hailed as "tennis's greatest overacheiver."  He may be the ultimate tennis warrior, and who ever loves a pure warrior, especially one to whom it came so hard, who made it look so hard, and failed so often? Yet isn't that what striving, as opposed to merely winning - being flat-out better - is all about - and didn't his success outshine that of most?

The funny thing about Lendl's record at Wimbledon is that he had a sterling .774 winning percentage there, and made the semifinals three times. It's not like the guy couldn'tt play on grass, he was unable to be the best in the world on grass at the biggest tournament on the stuff.  That is, his impossible dream was interrupted, and remains a part of the ether.

Now consider this: Lendl did not even come into his own as a champion until relatively late in his career. He, was, to put it bluntly, a world-class choker before he became a dominant champion. It was not until his epic, French Open final comeback against McEnroe, when Lendl was 24 (1984), that he turned the corner. Before then, he was such an enigma that I took perverse pleasure in always describing him as "Weird Ivan Lendl" as in "Weird Al Yankovic" - like it said that on his birth certificate.

I was hard on him, but then he was hard on everyone in a way that I despised. His major shortcoming was one that he, ironically, shared with Martina Navratilova (whom Lendl scorned as a "limousine liberal" at every opportunity). He put too much emphasis on intelligence. This undoubtedly had to do with being East European (another thing I know about, firsthand). For many people in that part of the world, being "smart" (as opposed to kind, or principled, or good-natured), especially in cultural matters, is considered the highest of virtues.

Lendl held you in scorn if you weren't conventionally "smart" (meaning stone-cold logical, and shrewd), and that seemed a good enough reason for me to hold him in scorn. But here's something you need to know, and I should have taken into account. What a callow youth he was; how much he still had to learn. When he got off the plane from Czech-O, his favorite record  was Chipmunk Punk (I was told this by one of his former agents at ProServ). Weird enough for you? Or try this: When he saw the headline, John Lennon Shot, he turned to ProServ's Ken Solomon and asked, "Who is John Lennon"?

The irony I see now is that as critical as Lendl was of Navratilova, and as different as he was (and is) in his view of the world, they shared many qualities, starting with the fact that they were both outsiders. Navratilova, at least, tried her dangest - and in a conspicuous way - to fit in, somehow never relinquishing her East Euro arrogance. But Ivan Lendl did  not. He was a young man of  Prussian habits who was often described as "robotic" in a world that was head-over-heels in love with flamboyant, emotional basket cases like John McEnroe and Ilie Natase, or square shooters like Stan Smith or Bjorn Borg.

Sports Illustrated once ran a piece on Lendl, for which the headline read: The Champ Nobody Cares About. Ha ha ha ha! Tennis magazine countered with a piece of its own: Why You Should Care About Ivan Lendl - which, like all such pieces, really meant: Let's Try to Think up Some Reason to Like This Guy... B Lendl was a choker who remade himself  as he got the lay of the land around him in the wealthy, progressive West, yet he (and Navratilova) remained conspicuously  non-Americab; you couldn't beat the accent out of them with a stick. It's a sign of having a strong, basic identity, I suppose, even though it was packaged with that annoying, East European know-it-allism.

Also each of them became the epitome of the self-made player, learning to be a champion through what most people would agree is that vaunted institution of higher learning, HNU (Hard Knocks University). Each used fitness - along with every other tool available - to improve, and thus became a champion for the ages.I kind of wish they were friends, even though they would fight like cat and dog.

Over time, I warmed to Lendl. As I grew older, I came to realize that "weird" is often preferable to cool, especially when cool means being different only in a studied, superficial way. Late in Lendl's career, we got together to do a massive Q and A story for Tennis. I went to his home in Greenwich. It was as close to an American castle as you could get, complete with the infamous German shepherd guard dogs. Ivan gave me the typical "proud homeowner" tour. He must have had 50 works of original art on the wall - all by the same man, the Czech poster artist whom Lendl collected, Alphonse Mucha.

During my visit, I met Lendl's wife, Samantha (ne) Frankel - who studiously avoided engaging the press. It's funny, but a few weeks ago, when i first wrote about Lendl, the comments about this relationship were notably harsh.Granted, the situation was, at face value, disconcerting. Here was a shy, quiet, underage girl, the very image of a sheltered, innocent child from a wealthy American family, essentially cradle-snatched and living and traveling with a a spectrally-visaged, seemingly cold and ruthlessly logical world-class tennis pro from East Europe. Who could blame anyone for wondering, What were her parents thinking?

But as I got to know a little more about Samantha, my attitude changed. During that visit to Greenwich, I asked Samantha if Ivan shared her love of horses. She replied, "No, he doesn't."

"Why not?" I wondered.

She looked me straight in the eye and answered: "Because you can't control them. They have a will of their own."

This clearly was a young woman who knew what she was talking about. Whatever she was, it wasn't immature, imperceptive, or overly impressionable. She was the closest thing I've ever encountered to a Hitchcock blond; she didn't even need that hair color. Samantha struck me as a very smart, secure, independent-minded young woman who knew exactly what she was getting into, from the get-go. Or perhaps she realized what she had gotten into, and resolved to deal with it. And isn't that what marriage is all about?

Was Samantha looking for a father figure? Who knows, who cares? The facts speak for themselves: her relationship with Ivan was fruitful, and utterly lacking in conspicuous drama. Many of my fellow press pariahs loved to trot out the Stepford Wife, Junior Division cracks as they observed Samantha sitting in the Player Guest box, impassive and cool. But I always preferred that to endless mugging for the camera, a la Brooke Shields or even Barbra Feltus Becker.

And Samantha not only lived with Ivan, she stayed with him. Just  imagine the kind of mental and emotional strength it must have taken for a young lady like Samantha to put up with all this. However you feel about Lendl, you know this is one tough, poised, resilient girl. Make what assumptions you will about the human heart, and the capacity for love and loyalty, at your peril.

During that sojourn at the Lendls, Ivan and I drove up to Hartford in Lendl's hot Porsche to watch the NHL Whalers play a hockey game. We had a good time, talking about just about everything in which we had common interest. Two elements in our conversation still stand out in my mind as classic "Lendl moments".

Ivan rolled out for me his plan for "gun control", my own being that gun control is the ability to hit what you're aiming at. He said you ought to have "gun clubs", where registered guns were kept and stored. Each time you wanted to target practice or go hunting, you would have to sign out a gun, and then confirm that it was properly returned.

The second Ivan Lendl Solution was even better. Because he liked to drive hot cars at speed, he thought that the best way to prevent highway carnage  would be to institute a system of color-coding vehicles.   If you drove, say, a beat-up Toyota, you would have a big yellow stripe running the length of your car (roof and all!), and you had to stay in the far right, slow lane. If you drove a car with sufficient muscle, and had demonstrated sufficient driving expertise, you could have a green stripe on your car, which entitled you to use either the slow or middle lane. And if you were a regular Dale Earnhardt, and had a vehicle up to snuff, you could have a red stripe, which entitled you to use the far left, fast lane, and go as fast as your vehicle could take you.

There you have it. Weird Ivan Lendl.

Oh, one one more story. John Fitzgerald, the Aussie doubles specialist and all-around good guy, had a baby during one Australian Open. Bursting into the locker room upon hearing that "Fitzy" was the proud papa of a baby girl, Lendl - in a trademark Lendl jibe - said, "Vell done, Fitzy. Ven you are man enough, you may have a baby boy."

Lendl, as you probably know, went on to have five lovely daughters with Samantha.

Can you say, "poetic justice"?