Although the upcoming Australian Open may be too early to assess fully the impact of Ivan Lendl’s arrival in Andy Murray’s support team, it can safely be assumed that the new coach’s renowned single-minded approach will have made a noticeable impression.
The 51-year-old Lendl appeared in 19 Grand Slam finals, winning eight of them, and was world No.1 for a total of 270 weeks – and this in an era when the faces across the net included Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg.
What Lendl has not done previously, of course, is to coach anyone at this level, but the unrelenting pursuit of perfection which characterised his playing career still shines brightly on all his endeavours, whether at golf ( he is off scratch) or running his new tennis and golf academy at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
There are, too, similarities of style and outlook which will have appealed to Murray when he had exploratory talks with Lendl. Murray has reached, and lost, three Grand Slam finals so far; Lendl lost four of them before collecting his first – Roland Garros in1984.
Both men’s keen sense of humour is well-concealed and though Murray can unleash his emotions in times of triumph or stress, Lendl’s Czech upbringing ensured that opponents rarely knew what was going through his mind, and this may be one of the assets he can instil in his charge.
Perhaps it was the Lendl straight face which persuaded the rulers of North Korea to put him on one of their postage stamps in 1986, the year he won the French and US Opens and was runner-up at Wimbledon to Becker.
Certainly the impression of stiffness was difficult to shake off. That same year the American magazine Sports Illustrated greeted Lendl’s US Open victory over Miloslav Mecir with the headline “The Champion Nobody Cares About”, a dismissal so patently absurd that it probably still rankles.
Two years later I asked Wimbledon’s leading men and women who they most admired in their sport. McEnroe, Wilander, Pat Cash (who had beaten him in the 1987 Wimbledon final), Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova all nominated Lendl. All cited his work ethic and determination.
These attributes were not enough to add Wimbledon to his list of eight Grand Slams (three French, three US and two Australian Opens), which ostensibly provides ammunition for those who might doubt the wisdom of Murray’s choice.
However, when he was asked which part of his career provided most pride, Lendl said this: “My record at Wimbledon, believe it or not. The tournament absolutely, positively did not suit my style but I was able to do very well there, even though I never won the title.
“Two Wimbledon finals and five semi-finals may not be as good an achievement as eight US Open finals and three titles but relatively speaking I think it’s superior. Of course, people never believe me when I say this. I wish I had learned to like Wimbledon sooner, because I came to love it.”
That deep-lying Lendl sense of humour was revealed when he told me that his Wimbledon record had once earned him a fine dinner. “A friend of mine used to run a mini-tour I played on and one day he said ‘I need to buy you dinner’. I asked why and he said ‘I went to a bar the other day and there were about 25 guys watching a tennis match. I said to them, help me guys, what year was it that Lendl won Wimbledon?'”
Lendl smiled, “They said no, he never did. So my friend wagered 100 dollars with each of them. They put the money on the table and he said ‘Thank you very much, 1978, Juniors.’ So he bought me a great dinner.”
And should Lendl help Murray to his dream of the Wimbledon title another memorable dinner would surely be in order.
