Tag Archives: Ivan Lendl
Ivan Lendl
Ivan Lendl (Tennis. Born, Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, Mar. 7, 1960.) A powerful, well-conditioned baseliner, Ivan Lendl never captured tennis fans’ imaginations’ the way many of his contemporaries, including John McEnroe, did, but his record ranks among the greatest in the sport’s history. Lendl, who was dogged early in his career by accusations of tanking matches, reached the […]
John McEnroe
John McEnroe (Tennis. Born, Wiesbaden, West Germany, Feb. 16, 1959.) John Patrick McEnroe, Jr., was often considered a tennis artist, using a deft touch and the possibilities afforded by the game’s geometry to craft court brilliance. And, like many artists, he was boorish, vulgar, and impatient with societal norms, his transgressions sometimes – though not […]
Jimmy Connors
Jimmy Connors (Tennis. Born, Belleville, IL, Sept. 2, 1952.) Perhaps the player most emblematic of tennis’ transition in the late 1960s and early 1970s from genteel country-club amateurism to noisy professionalism, James Scott Connors won the U.S. Open five times on three surfaces in two venues, but may today be best remembered for an Open […]
Boris Becker
Boris Becker (Tennis. Born, Nov. 22, 1967, Leimen, West Germany.) A wunderkind who astonished the tennis world as a 17-year-old by winning Wimbledon, Boris Becker was a crowd-pleasing, gregarious, athletic serve-and-volleyer who won the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadow in 1989, defeating Ivan Lendl in the final. Becker’s only U.S. championship came after he had […]