Ivan Lendl

Ivan Lendl

Country (sports)	Czechoslovakia (1978–1992) United States (1992—present)
Residence	Goshen, Connecticut, US (1992— ), Vero Beach, Florida, US (2004— )
Born	(1960-03-07) March 7, 1960 Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)
Height	1.87 m (6 ft 2 in)
Turned pro	1978
Retired	December 20, 1999
Plays	Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Prize money	$21,262,417 8th All-time leader in earnings
Int. Tennis HoF	2001 (member page)
Singles
Career record	1071–239 (81.8%)
Career titles	144 including 94 listed by the ATP
Highest ranking	No. 1 (February 28, 1983)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	W (1989, 1990)
French Open	W (1984, 1986, 1987)
Wimbledon	F (1986, 1987)
US Open	W (1985, 1986, 1987)
Other tournaments
Tour Finals	Masters W (1981, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987) WCT W (1982, 1985)
Doubles
Career record	187–140 (57.2%)
Career titles	6
Highest ranking	No. 20 (May 12, 1986)
Last updated on: July 13, 2007.

Ivan Lendl (born March 7, 1960) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player. Originally from Czechoslovakia, Lendl became a United States citizen. He was one of the game's most dominant players in the 1980s and remained a top competitor into the early 1990s. He is considered to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Lendl captured eight Grand Slam singles titles. He competed in 19 Grand Slam singles finals, at the time a record for a man since surpassed by Roger Federer in 2009. He reached at least one Grand Slam final for 11 consecutive years, a record shared with Pete Sampras. Before the formation of the ATP Lendl reached a record 12 year end championships (equaled by John McEnroe). He won 2 WCT Finals titles and a record 5 Masters Grand Prix titles,tied with Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. He also won a record 22 Championship Series titles (1980–89) the precursors to the current ATP Masters 1000. Lendl first attained the World No. 1 ranking on February 28, 1983 and bolstered his claim to the top spot when he defeated John McEnroe in the 1984 French Open final. For much of the next five years, Lendl was the top ranked player until August 1990 (with a break from September 1988 to January 1989 when Mats Wilander was at the top). He finished four years ranked as the world's top player (1985–1987 and 1989) and was ranked No. 1 for a total of 270 weeks and set a new record previously held by Jimmy Connors since broken by Pete Sampras and Roger Federer.

Lendl's game relied particularly on strength and heavy topspin from the baseline and helped usher in the modern era of "power tennis". He himself called his game as "hitting hot", a relentless all-court game that was coming to dominate in tennis.

Personal life

Lendl was born into a tennis family in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). His parents were top players in Czechoslovakia. (His mother Olga was at one point ranked the No. 2 woman player in the country). Lendl turned professional in tennis in 1978. He started to live in the United States in 1981, first at the home of mentor and friend Wojtek Fibak; later, in 1984, Lendl bought his own residence in Greenwich, Connecticut. Ivan applied for and received a U.S. Permanent Resident Card (also known as a Green Card) in 1987 and wanted to get U.S. citizenship as soon as possible to represent the USA in the 1988 Olympic Games and in Davis Cup. A bill in Congress to bypass the traditional five-year waiting procedure was rejected in 1988 because Czechoslovak authorities refused to provide the necessary waivers. He became a U.S. citizen on July 7, 1992.

On September 16, 1989, six days after losing the final of the US Open to Boris Becker, Lendl married Samantha Frankel. They have five daughters: Marika (born May 4, 1990), twins Isabelle and Caroline (born July 29, 1991), Daniela (born June 24, 1993), and Nikola (born January 20, 1998). He transferred his competitive interests to professional golf where he achieved a win on the Celebrity Tour. Still competitive at the mini-tour levels, Lendl now devotes much of his time managing the development of his daughters' golfing abilities. Two of his daughters (Marika and Isabelle) are members of the University of Florida Women's Golf Team. Daniela is a member of the University of Alabama Women's Golf Team. His daughters Caroline and Nikola enjoy eventing horses.

South African exhibition and aftermath

In July 1983, Lendl played three exhibition matches (against Johan Kriek, Kevin Curren, Jimmy Connors) in Sun City, in the apartheid-era bantustan of Bophuthatswana. The Czechoslovak Sport Federation (ČSTV), controlled by the Communist Party, expelled him from the Czechoslovak Davis Cup team and fined him $150,000. Lendl disagreed with the punishment and fine.

In addition, the publication of his name and results in the Czechoslovak media was prohibited. The ban was extended not only to Lendl, but to anything about world tennis, all tennis tournaments and both men's and women's circuits (with the exception of blank Grand Slam results).

The appearance in this exhibition in Sun City and Lendl's Americanized living style ignited a long-lasting dispute between Lendl and the Czechoslovak communist authorities, which was never settled and resulted in his decision to apply for a green card in 1987 and later on for U.S. citizenship.

Playing style

Lendl was known, along with Björn Borg, for using his heavy topspin forehand to dictate play. His trademark shot was his running forehand, which he could direct either down the line or cross-court.

Early in his career Lendl played a sliced backhand, but in the early 1980s he learned to hit his backhand with significant topspin. This shift allowed him to defeat John McEnroe in 1984 in the French Open – Lendl's first Grand Slam victory. In the first two sets McEnroe used his habitual proximity to the net to intercept Lendl's cross-court passing shots. In the third set Lendl started using lobs, forcing McEnroe to distance himself from the net to prepare for the lobs. McEnroe's further distance from the net opened the angles for Lendl's cross-court passing shots, which ultimately gained Lendl points and turned the match around.

Lendl's serve was powerful but inconsistent. His very high toss may have been to blame. Lendl's consistency from the baseline was machine-like. Though tall and apparently gangly, Lendl was very fast on the court. Lendl did not win Wimbledon because he could not sufficiently improve his consistency at the net. Grass courts yield notoriously bad bounces, and that destabilized his baseline game more than other baseliners. His groundstroke setup was very complete, almost robotic and repeated bad bounces made him uncomfortable. Wimbledon in those days required reducing baseline play by coming to the net. He devoted considerable effort to improving his net play, but fell short of a Wimbledon title. Toward the end of his days on the ATP tour Lendl ended his long term clothing, shoe and racket deal with Adidas. He signed with Mizuno, and finally began to play with a mid-sized racket very similar to the Adidas racket he had used throughout most of his career, itself based on the Kneissl White Star model.

Tennis career

Lendl first came to the tennis world's attention as an outstanding junior player. In 1978, he won the boys' singles titles at both the French Open and Wimbledon and was ranked the World No. 1 junior player.

Lendl made an almost immediate impact on the game after turning professional. After reaching his first top-level singles final in 1979, he won seven singles titles in 1980, including three tournament wins in three consecutive weeks on three different surfaces. The success continued in 1981 as he won 10 titles including his first season ending Masters Grand Prix tour title defeating Vitas Gerulaitis in five sets.

In 1982, he won in total 15 of the 23 singles tournaments he entered and had a 44-match winning streak.

He competed on the separate World Championship Tennis (WCT) tour where he won all 10 WCT tournaments he entered, including winning his first WCT Finals where he defeated John McEnroe in straight sets. He met McEnroe again in the Masters Grand Prix final and won in straight sets to claim his second season ending championship of that particular tour.

In an era when tournament prize money was rising sharply due to the competition between 2 circuits (Grand Prix and WCT), Lendl's haul of titles quickly made him the highest-earning tennis player of all time.

He won another seven tournaments in 1983.

But Grand Slam titles eluded Lendl in the early years of his career. He reached his first Grand Slam final at the French Open in 1981, where he lost in five sets to Björn Borg. His second came at the US Open in 1982, where he was defeated by Jimmy Connors. In 1983, he was the runner-up at both the Australian Open and the US Open.

Lendl's first Grand Slam title came at the 1984 French Open, where he defeated John McEnroe in a long final to claim what was arguably his best victory. Down two sets to love and later trailing 4–2 in the fourth set, Lendl battled back to claim the title 3–6, 2–6, 6–4, 7–5, 7–5. McEnroe gained a measure of revenge by beating Lendl in straight sets in both finals of the US Open 1984 and Volvo Masters 1984 (played in January 1985).

Lendl lost in the final of the 1985 French Open to Mats Wilander. He then faced McEnroe again in the final of the US Open, and this time it was Lendl who emerged victorious in a straight sets win. It was the first of three consecutive US Open titles for Lendl and part of a run of eight consecutive US Open finals. He reached the WCT Finals for the second and last time defeating Tim Mayotte in three sets. Success continued when he also took the Masters Grand Prix title for the third time defeating Boris Becker in straight sets.

In 1986 and 1987 he added wins in the French Open to his U.S Open victories including the season ending 1986 and 1987 Masters Grand Prix championship titles, Where he defeated Boris Becker (86) in straight sets and Mats Wilander (87) in three sets. This took him to his fifth and last Grand Prix year end tour title.

During each of the years from 1985 through 1987, Lendl's match winning percentage was greater than 90%. This record was equalled by Roger Federer in 2006. Lendl, however, remains the only male tennis player with at least 90% match wins in five different years (1982 was the first, 1989 the last). From the 1985 US Open through the 1988 Australian Open, Lendl reached ten consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinals—a record that was broken by Federer at the 2006 US Open.

1989 was another very strong year for Lendl. He started the year by capturing his first Australian Open title with a straight sets final victory over Miloslav Mečíř and went on to claim 10 titles out of 17 tournaments he entered. Lendl successfully defended his Australian Open title in 1990.

The only Grand Slam singles title Lendl never managed to win was Wimbledon. After reaching the semifinals in 1983 and 1984, he reached the final there twice, losing in straight sets to Boris Becker in 1986 and Pat Cash in 1987. In the years that followed, Lendl put in intensive efforts to train and hone his game on grass courts. But despite reaching the Wimbledon semifinals again in 1988, 1989 and 1990, he never again reached the final.

Lendl was part of the team that won Czechoslovakia's only Davis Cup title in 1980. He was the driving force behind the country's team in the first half of the 1980s but stopped playing in the event after he moved to the United States in 1986 because, in the eyes of communist Czechoslovakia's Tennis Association, he was an "illegal defector" from their country.

Lendl was also part of the Czechoslovakian team that won the World Team Cup in 1981 and was runner-up in 1984 and 1985.

Lendl's success in the game was due in large part to his highly meticulous and intensive training and physical conditioning regime, his scientific approach to preparing for and playing the game, and a strong desire to put in whatever it took to be successful. It is believed that a contributing factor to his run of eight successive US Open finals and long record of success at that tournament was that he hired the same workers who laid the hardcourt surfaces at Flushing Meadows each year to install an exact copy in the grounds of his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Lendl announced his retirement from professional tennis on December 21, 1994, due to chronic back pain. Although he didn't play any official match following his defeat in the 2nd round of the US Open in 1994, Lendl's final decision to retire came only three and a half months later.

Lendl won a total of 94 career singles titles listed by the ATP (plus 49 other non-ATP tournaments, thus making a total of 144 singles titles) and 6 doubles titles, and his career prize money of U.S. $21,262,417 was a record at the time. In 2001, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

After finishing his tennis career, Lendl took up golf, earning a handicap of 0 and organizing a charity competition in 2004 called the "Ivan Lendl Celebrity Golf Tournament".

Lendl's professional attitude, modern playing style, scientific training methods, and unprecedented long-term success have had a considerable impact on today's tennis world. A typical Lendl quote is: "If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can."'

Ivan Lendl's return to tennis was announced on February 2, 2010 at a press conference announcing the Caesars Tennis Classic exhibition match scheduled for April 10, 2010 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Lendl will be playing his rival from the late 1980s, Mats Wilander, in a one set match. This will be Lendl's first tournament since his 1994 retirement. Venus Williams will host the tournament and additional matches will include US men's #1 Andy Roddick versus the recently retired Marat Safin.

On February 28, 2011, Lendl returned to the court in an exhibition with McEnroe at Madison Square Garden. It was planned to be a one-set, first-to-eight event. However, McEnroe, leading 6–3, injured his ankle and had to retire from the match.

Career statistics

Main article: Ivan Lendl career statistics

Singles performance timeline

Name	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	Career SR	Career W-L
Grand Slams
Australian Open			2R			F	4R	SF	NH	SF	SF	W	W	F	QF	1R	4R	2 / 12	48–10
French Open	1R	4R	3R	F	4R	QF	W	F	W	W	QF	4R			2R	1R	1R	3 / 15	53–12
Wimbledon		1R	3R	1R		SF	SF	4R	F	F	SF	SF	SF	3R	4R	2R		0 / 14	48–14
US Open		2R	QF	4R	F	F	F	W	W	W	F	F	QF	SF	QF	1R	2R	3 / 16	73–13
Grand Slam W-L	0–1	4–3	9–4	9–3	9–2	20–4	20–3	20–3	20–1	24–2	20–4	21–3	16–2	13–3	12–4	1–4	4–3	8 / 57	222–49
Year-End Championships
The Masters			F	W	W	F	F	W	W	W	F	SF	SF	SF				5 / 12	40–10
WCT Finals					W	F		W										2 / 4

NH = tournament not held

A = did not participate in the tournament

SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played

Records Grand Slam/Other

• These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
• Combined year end championships are: WCT Finals, ATP World Tour Finals

Grand Slam/Other	Years	Record accomplished	Player tied
Australian Open	1989–91	3 consecutive singles finals	Mats Wilander
Australian Open	1989–90	2 consecutive singles titles	Ken Rosewall, Guillermo Vilas Johan Kriek, Mats Wilander Stefan Edberg, Jim Courier Andre Agassi, Roger Federer
French Open	1984–87	4 consecutive singles finals	Björn Borg Roger Federer Rafael Nadal
US Open	1982–89	8 consecutive singles finals	Stands alone
US Open	1982–89	8 finals overall	Pete Sampras
US Open	1985–87	win/loss (sets) overall 95.5% (63/3)	Stands alone
US Open	1985–87	win/loss (sets) single season 3 years consecutive 95.5% (21/1)	Stands alone
Grand Slam Tournaments	1981–86	Runner-up at all four	Roger Federer
Grand Slam Tournaments	1981–91	11 consecutive years reaching at least one final	Pete Sampras
Grand Slam Tournaments	1983–89	7 consecutive years with 20 match wins	Roger Federer
Grand Slam Tournaments	1986	Best match win/loss record in Majors single year 92.3% (20/1)	Stands alone
Grand Slam Tournaments	1987	Best match win/loss record in Majors single year 96.4% (24/2)	Stands alone
Grand Slam Tournaments	1990	Best match win/loss record in Majors single year 92.9% (16/2)	Stands alone
Combined year end championships WCT GP	1980–88	12 finals overall	John McEnroe
Grand Prix Tour Finals	1981–87	5 titles won	Roger Federer Pete Sampras
Grand Prix Tour Finals	1980–88	9 consecutive finals	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour Finals	1980–88	9 finals overall	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour Finals	1980–91	12 semi finals overall	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour Finals	1985	Won championship without losing a set	John McEnroe
Grand Prix Tour	1980–89	22 titles Championship Series	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour	1980–89	31 finals overall Championship Series	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour	1981–83	66 match winning streak indoors	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour	1981–83	18 consecutive finals	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour	1981–82	8 consecutive titles	John McEnroe
Grand Prix Tour	1982	9 carpet court titles (single year)	Stands alone
Grand Prix & ATP Tour	1983–93	5 wins single tournament Tokyo	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour	1980–89	6 wins single tournament Canadian Open	Stands alone
Grand Prix & ATP Tour	1980–93	14 consecutive years winning at least 1 title	Stands alone
Grand Prix & ATP Tour	1983–93	career match win percentage (hard courts) 82.59% (477/394)	Stands alone
Grand Prix Tour	1982–89	5 years consecutive match win percentage 90% (419/36)	Stands alone
No 1 Ranking	1985–87	3 consecutive years	Roger Federer Jimmy Connors John McEnroe Pete Sampras
No 1 Ranking calender year	1985	52 consecutive weeks	Roger Federer Jimmy Connors Lleyton Hewitt Pete Sampras
No 1 Ranking	1984–85	1st player to reclaim 1 year after losing	Roger Federer Rafael Nadal

• ITF World Champion (1985–1987, 1990).
• ATP Player of The Year (1985–1987).
• ATP Most Improved Player (1981).
• List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players

Recognition

• Tennis magazine named him as one of the ten greatest tennis players since 1966, calling him "the game's greatest overachiever" and emphasizing his importance in the game's history. In his book Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis, Bud Collins included Lendl in his list of the 21 greatest men's tennis players for the period from 1946 through 1992.
• In July 1986 DPR Korea issued a postage stamp depicting Ivan Lendl in play.

See also

• An account of Lendl's dramatic exit from the 1989 French Open
• Tennis male players statistics
• World number one male tennis player rankings

References

• Jiri Janousek, Pavel Vitous (1990). Ivan Lendl. Lidove nakladatelstvi, Praha, Czechoslovakia. ISBN 80-7022-088-0.
• Ivan Lendl, George Mendoza (1986). Hitting Hot: Ivan Lendl's 14-days Tennis Clinic. Random House, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-394-55407-8.

External links

• Ivan Lendl at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Ivan Lendl at the Davis Cup
• Ivan Lendl at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
• Father of Modern Tennis