Ailing Lendl wins open

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 68

Ailing Lendl wins open

NZPA-Reuter New York Ivan Lendl, playing on emotion and will when his ailing body threatened to fail him, beat Mats Wilander in four sets yesterday to win his third consecutive U.S. Open men’s singles tennis title. Lendl won, 6-7, 6-0, 7-6, 6-4, despite feeling “lousy” from the effects of influenza and said afterwards: “I just didn’t expect to last that long with Mats today, and I can’t believe I won this match. “I was out of juice for three and a half sets. It had to be the strength of mind and a little bit of luck. “Winning three times is something I never dreamed of,” the 27-year-old Czechoslovak said. His victory tied the American, John McEnroe, for most consecutive titles here. Earlier in the day Martina Navratilova also scored a historic c U.S. Open triple wheat? she/

added two doubles titles to her singles championship. Navratilova and Spaniard Emilio Sanchez beat the Americans, Betsy Nagelsen and Paul Annacone, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6, in the mixed doubles final after she and fellow American, Pam Shriver, pulled out a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, victory over Kathy Jordan of the United States and the Australian, Elizabeth Smylie, in the women’s doubles final. She became the first player to win a U.S. Open triple crown since the Australian, Margaret Court, did it in 1970. The top-seeded Lendl said if it had been any other tournament he would not have played in the semi-finals on Saturday or in the final, which lasted four hours, 47 minutes. In the first set, he said: “I felt heavy, slow and dizzy. I had to let the overheads bounce, because I couldn’t hit them.

“I would feel terrible, almost like falling over. Then the next three points I’d feel great.” The third-seeded Wilander, working on Lendl’s weaker backhand, broke the Czechoslovak in the fifth game of the first set but Lendl broke the 23-year-old Swede in the eighth game. They then held service to force a tiebreaker. In the first of the match’s two tiebreakers, Wilander simply outlasted Lendl to win 9-7. It was Lendl’s first loss of a set in the tournament. But in the second set, Lendl suddenly took command and destroyed Wilander 6-0, blasting forehand shots and serves past the helpless Swede. In the third set, Wilander, who now stands 6-12 in career matches against Lendl, battled back from 0-4 to 4-5 in the tiebreaker but that was as far a$ he got as Lendl won 7-4 with an ace.

The fourth set was perhaps the best played in the match as the two groundstroking machines came to the net, more often to put away winners. "I was getting cramps here and there for the last set and a half,” Lendl said. “I played on the emotion and emotion falls quickly low, especially if I had lost the last set in the tiebreaker.” Lendl, who has won 71 of his last 75 matches on hardcourts, survived a break point in the first game of the set to hold serve. The games went on serve and included some sparkling rallies, particularly in the ninth game when Wilander received a standing ovation for a backhand winner down the line after a long rally. But Lendl held serve to reach 5-4 and then in the tenth game won the title on his second match point with a crisp backhand return down the lins.