Lendl Is Back, More Organized Than Ever

Watch Ivan Lendl play tennis and you will see a man of precision, a man in control.

Wide wristbands mop his brow. Long fingers straighten his racket strings. He whacks his sneakers with his racket like Wade Boggs knocks dirt from his spikes.

If Lendl’s grip is sweaty, he wipes it twice with sawdust from his pocket. If serving, he holds two balls, studying and rotating them, until he consigns the fluffier one to his pocket.

The smaller ball gets four bounces before his first serve; the fluffy ball gets three bounces before his second serve. If playing on grass, with its moisture, he reduces the bounces to two and one.

Every racket he uses is identical: 441.0 grams, strung at 72.5 pounds, with a balance point 331.0 millimeters from the butt.

He pays someone to perform such tasks as filling his cars with gas and making sure they contain sufficient highway tokens.

“Because of all the demands on my time,” Lendl said, “it’s impossible to be as efficient as I can unless I’m properly organized.”

By regulating everything in his power, by blocking out distractions, Lendl can concentrate on what he does best: hit tennis balls. For 156 weeks, from 1985-88, he hit tennis balls better than anyone in the world. Currently, the Greenwich, Conn., resident is ranked fourth.

Indoors, without the unpredictability of sun, wind or grass, Lendl won a record 66 consecutive matches.

But in the past 15 months, three elements have entered his life that threaten to disrupt his orderly existence. Marika, Isabelle and Carolyn are the daughters of Ivan and Samantha Lendl.

Isabelle and Carolyn are twins born July 29. They are non-identical. When they cry, it is not on schedule. Marika was born May 4, 1990.

In the past decade, only two fathers have won a Grand Slam tournament: Andres Gomez and Jimmy Connors.

“There’s a definite adjustment to make as a husband and a parent,” Connors said. “You have to get things straight within yourself so you can feel at ease, so that when you’re playing tennis you’re not slighting your family and when you’re with your family you’re not slighting your tennis.

“Some find this, some don’t.”

John McEnroe, father of three, has not. His last major title came in 1984, the year before his firstborn with wife Tatum O’Neal.

Lendl has won two tournaments this year, fewest since 1979. Recently, his ranking dropped from the top three for the first time since 1982.

“(Lendl) seems to have slipped a bit,” Connors said.

Lendl, 31, the proud father, remains the proud player. He attributes the drop to a wrist injury that required surgery and caused him to withdraw from the French Open in May. That preceded a third-round loss at Wimbledon, his earliest exit in 10 years. He was eliminated in the third round of the ATP Championship Thursday in Mason, Ohio.

He had reached the final of the Australian Open in January and won two tournaments in February. Once physical fitness returns, he said, parenthood will take its orderly place in his organized lifestyle.

“It’s really not a big problem,” he said. “My wife and my associates help to filter the distractive elements so I can concentrate on my tennis and my family obligations.”

If anyone can regain the singleness of purpose required to win a major championship, Connors said Lendl would be the man.

“He’s very regimented,” Connors said. “He has that tunnel vision to where he can go out and try to get it back.”

Lendl realized early in his career his body was his income. He changed his diet from eggs, steaks and burgers to fruits, vegetables and pasta. He began a vigorous training program that involves 3-4 hours of workouts almost every non-match day.

If natural talent wouldn’t take him to the top, hard work would. And did.

He has won 90 tournaments and $17,354,346 -- more than Connors and No.1-ranked Boris Becker combined. He is the greatest moneymaker in tennis history.

Hartford Whalers owner Richard Gordon invited Lendl to be a member of the NHL team’s advisory board, in part for his winning example but also because Lendl is a knowledgeable hockey fan.

“I’ve never met anybody like him,” Gordon said. “He wants to be the best. He knows how hard he has to work and he’s dedicated his life to it.

“Everything is focused. ... Every hour of the day is programmed for him. It’s proven to be successful.”

Childhood for the Lendls will be much different from that of their father. For one, they will grow up in 30,000-square-foot house, under construction in Cornwall, Conn., on 200 acres Lendl purchased in 1989 along with 600 acres in neighboring Goshen. For another, they have siblings.

Ivan grew up 10 miles from the Polish border in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, the only child of Jiri and Olga Lendl. Both parents played tennis. Jiri was ranked among the top 15 Czech men, Olga was second among Czech women.

At 12, Ivan was the national age group champion. At 14, he beat his mother for the first time. At 15, the Czech tennis federation sent him to Florida for six weeks of training. At 18, he won the junior title at Wimbledon.

A year later, he moved in with Wojtek Fibak, a pro from Poland who had made a home in Greenwich. Fibak practiced with Lendl, guided his business interests, eased the transition to his new world.

“He was always very sad,” Fibak told New York magazine in 1989, “and he had this Slavic nature. If things didn’t go his way, he gave matches away. I wanted for him to become a machine, to hide his feelings, to wear an unemotional mask on his face, not to react to anything.”

Americans viewed Lendl as an automaton. Reserved, insecure with his English, he embodied the caricature communist: Ivan the Terrible.

In Czechoslovakia, where Lendl’s parents live, smiles and wisecracks weren’t required for popularity. Not to a budding hockey star named Bobby Holik.

“He was like athlete-hero,” said Holik, a forward for the Whalers. “When he left the country, they didn’t say too much about him in newspapers, but all the people know who Ivan Lendl is and what he’s done.

“Communists, they were trying to keep good news about Ivan hidden, but I think it’s hard to keep news about Ivan hidden because he’s one of the best in world.”

When Lendl played an exhibition in Prague in February, 1990, his entourage included Gordon and Whalers general manager Ed Johnston. With Lendl’s understanding of Czech bureaucracy, they left with an agreement for Holik to play for the Whalers.

“He’s got tremendous insight into how things work over there,” Gordon said. “We were able to do things most people couldn’t do.”

In winter, Lendl has been known to let ice form in his pool so he can play hockey with his caretaker, Janek Mars. Last year he donned goalie pads for a Whalers commercial. He attends 10-15 home games each season and quite a few road games.

“Wherever he is, even if he’s in Australia, he’ll call me,” Gordon said. “‘Send me tapes (of Whalers games).’ He has to know the scores.”

Lendl has won every major championship except Wimbledon, the one played on the most unpredictable surface. Grass courts get chewed up after a fortnight of play; balls skid and bounce crazily. Lendl has lost twice in the final and five times in the semifinals.

But on the more predictable surfaces of the French, Australian and U.S. Opens, Lendl has won eight titles, more than any active player.

The U.S. Open is played on the same DecoTurf II surface as the court in his Greenwich back yard. He is 63-9 at Flushing Meadow, N.Y., with eight consecutive appearances in the final. DecoTurf II is the surface at the Volvo International this week in New Haven.

Foreigners who establish permanent residence in the United States are required to wait five years for citizenship. Lendl becomes eligible in April. He said he would be honored to represent the nation in Davis Cup or Olympic competition.

Bob Sunko is president of Spectrum Sports, the two-person company Lendl formed in 1987 to manage his tennis- and time-related interests. Of Lendl’s impending citizenship, Sunko said, “I’m not sure which is more important, this or winning Wimbledon.”

As for the elusive Wimbledon title, perhaps Lendl can take solace in the plight of another Czech. Jaroslav Drobny first played Wimbledon in 1938. He lost twice in the final and three times in the semifinals. Some took to calling him the Nearly Man.

By 1954 his stature had diminished such that organizers seeded him 11th. With no expectations, he flourished, advancing to the final and beating Ken Rosewall, 13-11, 4-6, 6-2, 9-7.

Drobny was 32 when he won Wimbledon. Lendl turns 32 in March.

After his career ends, with or without a Wimbledon title, Lendl will flourish, according to Gordon.

“He’s such a bright guy, such a good businessman,” Gordon said. “He can do most anything. One thing’s for sure, whatever he does, it’s an all-out battle.”