THE SCOOP, JULY 17

Ivan Lendl: a personal look at the Hall of Famer

By Sandra Harwitt
tennisreporters.net

Over the past weekend, Ivan Lendl took his proper place among the greats in the game when he was enshrined into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. In a ceremony that took place at the Hall of Fame’s pristine headquarters at Newport, R.I., Mervyn Rose, a dominant Australian doubles player from the 1950’s, who spent time coaching Billie Jean King and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, was also inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday afternoon.

A former world No. 1, Lendl occupied the top spot for a total of 270 weeks, only three weeks shy of Jimmy Connors all-time record for sitting on the throne. Lendl won an impressive 94 career titles, including eight Grand Slam trophies, but only achieved two finalist showings at Wimbledon, the one tournament to defy his methodical training regimen and stubborn mindset.

Behind the scenes, however, there was far more to Lendl than the robotic personality that most people imagined the Czech born-American citizen possessed. The ultimate game player, Lendl often tried to outwit and outmaneuver people around him and while his sense of humor could at times have a biting edge, he was the master of tease.

As a way of honoring Lendl on his induction into the Hall of Fame, let’s take a little different look at the former world No. 1, now a celebrity golfer and father of five daughters.

‘YOU ONLY DO GIRLS!’
Speaking of his daughters, I remember being at the 1993 Australian Open and seeing Ivan’s wife, Samantha, sitting outside the locker room. Although she wasn’t showing, there was just something that said the couple was expecting another child – they already were the parents of daughter Marika nearly three and twins Caroline and Isabelle nearly two. Standing with fellow reporter Richard Finn, now the public relations guru for the New York Road Runner’s Club, we ran into Lendl and I mentioned that I thought there was a new baby on the way. Lendl smiled verification and then I asked if they knew what was on the way since the couple had advance knowledge of the sex of their previous arrivals. Lendl, who I suspected was in the market for a son, said that they didn’t know but would find out when they returned home to Connecticut from Melbourne. Since Ivan was always one to enjoy a joke, I told him he didn’t have to bother with the amniocentesis because I was sure it was another girl. Looking a bit perturbed, he asked how I figured that and I told him honestly, “You only do girls!” A few weeks later, I ran into Lendl at the Philadelphia tournament and asked him about the amnio results and he told me they had the answer but he wasn’t telling me. In truth, a fellow player had already told me that Lendl had revealed another daughter (Daniela) was on the way, so I looked at Ivan and said he didn’t have to tell me anything since I already told him it was another girl at Australia. I must admit that Lendl did raise his eyebrows – a dead give away that I was right.
Another couple of incidents involving Lendl that stand out in my mind happened at the Canadian Open in Montreal.

The locker room at Jarry Stadium where the Canadian Open is played was far away from the media area so press officers used a golf cart to deliver players to the interview room. One day, Lendl looked at the press officer – about 15 years older than he was and clearly not as fit as a professional athlete – and hopped into the golf cart and starting driving away. He circled back around and told the press officer that if he gets to the interview room before she did on foot, he wouldn’t have to do the interview. I suspect that Lendl allowed the contest to be a draw and did the interview, but he obviously had a chuckle about the press officer who had to make an exhausting dash to the interview room.

In another Montreal moment, Lendl was annoyed about losing a match he should have won and took his time coming into the press – a lot of time as it was going to turn out. Initially, they told the media he would be an hour, so an hour later the media climbed down the stadium stairs to the interview room and waited and waited. Finally, at around 6PM, the word was out, Lendl had decided he was hungry, gone back to the city about 40 minutes away and would not return to do the interview until after 10 if he was still needed. This was typical Lendl – trying to maneuver things how he wanted -- but the media was not going to let him get away with it. His loss was the story of the day and he was going to have to show, so a unified media corps insisted they bring him back. When he finally arrived close to 11 that night, most reporters had written without his quotes to meet their deadlines and it turned out there were only about three perfunctory questions put to Lendl and then nothing more. Initially a bit pissed off that the media made him come back and then didn’t ask him but a few non-consequential questions, Lendl eventually lightened up, almost appreciating that the media had put one over on him this time around.

CAN'T BUY IT BACK
Another funny story about Lendl has to do with his extensive collection of the works of Alphonse Mucha, a world-renowned Czech artist who created many famous poster-style works that hang in museums worldwide. Lendl has generously loaned paintings from his collection to many museums, but always the perfectionist, he was upset to find that a prominent New York museum had ownership of one of the paintings that belonged in a series of Mucha works he possessed. Reportedly, Lendl called the museum to purchase the missing work for his own collection to only be told that the museum was not in the habit of selling pieces from its collection.

A highly competitive person with a desire to succeed that in all fairness outweighed his innate athletic ability, Lendl took the advantages he had and put them together to make himself into the best tennis player in the world for a long period of time. According to Lendl, who talked about his career during the Hall of Fame enshrinement, he had a very motivational force driving him from the early years as a child in Communist Czechoslovakia, saying, “I knew what Communism was like and the only way to leave was to be good enough to do something to get me out.”