Becker, McEnroe, Sampras. S & V is a lost art.🎾

Lendl ruled the roost for so long. An incredible machine like player who always went deep in every tournament. You could always rely on Lendl being in semifinals of major tournaments AND regular tour events!

Exactly my sentiments...i think he was very stylish.. especially his mannerisms on the court....his first serve motion,where he would shake his shoulders before delivering his service,his powerful FH , his versatile one handed BH...he could slice and also play drives... criminally underated

It was a sport that could be enjoyed by everyone before on public channels. What you mentioned just made it available to a certain sector of society. Not everyone was watching anymore

Same for me regarding Stefan Edberg :-)

Now I liked Lendl. I did not before, but in this match I was for him. Also in matches against Sampras I was for Lendl. Against Agassi I was for Agassi. There is no real logic to this. It is all based on emotions.

Definately Becker at his best but throughout the whole 1989 year Lendl was by some way the world's best. 10 titles and I think 5 further finals. Becker edged him thanks to a rain break and honestly only because of that rain break at Wimbledon but I was there and man he was on the ropes and mentally gone before mother nature saved him.

Agreed, thats why the ATP named him player of that year. Only other time I remember them doing that against the ranked No 1 was in 1982 for Connors.

@DannySuls Agassi, Courier and Sampras all peaked during the early to mid 90s and Boom-Boom couldn’t beat them through power like he did Lendl and McEnroe

@@jonmortimer5831 Becker beat Lendl always when it mattered most.

Well that's blatantly not true... He lost to him at the 1985, 86 and 87 end of year Masters which clearly mattered and the US Open in 1992 when, incidentally, Lendl was near the end of his career. Furthermore Becker's fifth set tie break win in the 88 Masters final is one of the most famous fluke shots of all time where he caught the net and the ball dropped dead. I'm also pretty sure Becker didn't want to lose the hefty prize money up for grabs in Tokyo or the Queens final on grass which of course was his favoured surface. This win at the 89 US Open came by a whisker and what I can say with absolute certainty is that the Wimbledon win against Lendl that Summer came only because Becker had a chance to regroup in the rain delay and fair play to him, he didn't send the rain. Nevertheless that match was Lendl's until that point and in fact has to go down in history as one of the most significant weather interferences of any professional tennis match. You certainly can see if you watch the match but being there made it even more tangible. So Becker of course a great player but Lendl ultimately had the winning head to head, and considering of their 21 meets only 1 was on clay which of course Lendl won that just compounds his overall superiority. He had twice as many titles as Becker on the main tour, 3 times as many if you include those he won on the parallel pro tour. I mean, a detailed reply to your comment I know but it's all true.

What years are considered the golden age of tennis?

Players keep getting better and better and the competition keeps getting tougher and tougher ......what are the "golden days" of tennis.......I'd say the Federer, Nadal, Djokovic era is as golden as it gets and now you have Alcaraz, Sinner, etc. coming ......

I think it's all a matter of perspective which era you think of as 'golden'. Some would say it about the 70s with McEnroe and Borg, some the 90s with Sampras and Agassi, some the Nadal-Djokovic-Federer era ... whether it's 'golden' or 'better' to have an era with a big rivalry between dominant players, or to have more parity where lots more players have a realistic shot at the big titles, is really a matter of personal taste. Particularly with the changes in technology involved, there's no objective way to compare players of different eras.

It's like music. Golden years are those when you were young...

The Golden years were earlier than this.

That would be nice but with all the changes in the balls courts, they've made the game boring and slow for the fans to watch more bloody rallies. This is technique and serve and volley which no one can do these days.

In which round did Becker face Rostagno back then?

@@lauftammo Second round. I was fortunate enough to be in the stadium when it happened.

Yes, Lendl and Borg were incredible in terms of physical fitness.

Sorry, but every single feat of the Big 3 is way more impressive than Lendl.

@@purplefishies ... and - even MORE so - tha n lousy criminal (reminds me - in his stupid crimes - of Trump) Boris "The Bumm Bumm" Bäcker !

Becker was an anomaly: he won W @ 17

He's very cuddly now & smiles, see you at Wimbledon Ivan only for a couple of rounds, hopefully 5 setters again.

Did you have a crystal ball?!?

In 88 Lendl was bested by wilander, in 89 he took N1 position again. But the real N1 in 89 was Becker Who won Wimbledon and New York. This match was a defeat that Marks a Turning point in Lendl's career: he cant be no 1 for long time

Faster than the general public plays.

Are you watching a match in your imagination? I can't see any intimidation signs here to be honest.

Ivan intimidated by Boris ? 🤔😆

Thanks for pointing that out. I agree.

Yes - what a super-calm monster of a shot in that situation.

True but Lendl won more GS.

@@frankdevries5739 and lost 19

88 Semi Final Wimbledon.

This is correct, but you have to consider that very rarely Becker met Lendl on clay, where he would have been easily destroyed. The same applies to Edberg... In other words, Edberg and Becker faced Lendl almost exclusively on their favorite surfaces, but they were too weak to face Lendl in the advanced stages of clay court tournaments.

Becker is 5.1 in slam matches, 3-0 in Slam finals, he really was Lendls nemesis

@@pascalprevot1050 That's crazy. Becker made it to the sf of the French that year (Lendl only to the 1/8), won Wimbledon and then the US Open. Yet Lendl remained #1? Absolutely absurd.

I think part of his problem wasn’t that he wasn’t playing great. Mentally, he would let these line calls just get to him. Even later he claimed he been treated unfairly and its just not true. Becker was much better at dealing with these things.

He was No1 because he lifted 10 titles that year. The fact the rain and Becker edged him in 2 grand slams doesn't make Becker No1. Those 2 days he was fractionally better. Over 52weeks he was a distant No2. Check the ranking points and other results. As for Lendl losing at the French in 5 to the eventual champion no disgrace there. He was in a totally different league to Becker on clay and Boris's run at the French was in part due to an easy draw.

Ivan byl můj veliký vzor.

Stich had a smooth beautiful flowing game and his serve was superb. His movement was definitely better than Becker on clay, but overall Becker was a better player than him on hard court and carpet. Though stich was better on clay and they were evenly matched on grass

Being a German and liking Stichs game more than Becker, wow 😂😂. I dont even remember Stichs playing style and I have watched every Wimbledon since 1970.

I wonder if the BBC will employ him once out of a Open prison where he will end up as a hardened criminal! I doubt it unless he changes his skin colour..

Wimbledon both made him and destroyed him in a way. I wish he played in this era. he would have matured later, maybe won Wimbledon at 20 but would have had a better career and his game would have developed fully

Well less than Ivan found a way past him as their head to head is in Lendl's favour even without them meeting on clay where Lendl would clearly have whipped Boris every time. No question on that at all. I grant Becker had a better record in slam head to head but Lendl did beat him at the US in 92.

He was Lendls nemesis and worst nightmare

Got to love inflation

80s and 90s - when people were normal

Today you make nothing with 300 000$😅

300000 in 1989 is 8.7 mil today so you are so wrong!

@ Hyman Sahak. To answer you question, the key point that may have cost Lendl this 1989 U.S.Open final against Becker was the chummed forehand from the baseline by Lendl at 3-1 up in the 4th set tiebreaker when Lendl took his eye off the ball as he knew Becker was coming into the net. There's no guarantee that Lendl would have gone on to win that match if he had gone up 4-1 in that 4th set tiebreaker, but he would have been "in the driver's seat" so to speak to close out that set and send the match into a 5th and deciding set. And who knows how that would have turned out?!

... it's not SO hard to figure : he was (and is) a FOOL (if law was just - he would still be sitting in jail - for almost another two years) !

A lot of guys from that era won 6,7,8 slams. The game was so deep then. Guys like Edberg, Wilander, Becker, Agassi, Kafelnikov, etc all had legit shots to win in all the majors.

@@timflaherty2731 Minus Kafelnikov. A beast on hardcourt and clay but not on lawn.

@@timflaherty2731 the surfaces were highly specialised as well..

Becker lost a couple he should have won...notably Stich @ W

Thanks for reminding me of his Davis Cup wins. He won it back to back for his country facing much stronger opposition. He even played doubles. How he didn't finish number 1 is beyond me. Lendl didn't even do well at the French that year. Becker almost made it to the final there too.

@@luperamos7307 Lendl did win 10 titles that year, including the Australian, and was runner up at the Open and semis at Wimbledon, so I suppose he was the most consistent. But Becker won when it really mattered.

Lendl was by far the better player throughout the whole 89 season with a crazy success rate. The rain break saved Becker at Wimbledon and not 1 audience member would have disagreed. History was rewritten by Mother Nature because watching it there there was no way Lendl was going to lose until that friggin delay.

@@doubts I agree. The technology changes the playing style. And you had to adapt to different courts back then. Nowadays they are not that different anymore.

I completely agree too. Two different worlds.

@ Gerry Manrique. Ivan Lendl didn't come very close to winning the Grand Slam in 1989 because although he won the Australian Open final over Miloslav Mecir, he lost to Chang in the 4th round at the French Open that year and lost to Becker in the semifinals at Wimbledon. Even if Lendl had not experienced the bad luck of the rain delay during his semifinal match against Becker and had defeated Becker in the semifinals, it would have been a very tall order for him to defeat Edberg in the finals who was a much better grass court player. Lendl stated at the 2019 roundtable discussion of tennis with McEnroe, Becker and Wilander during the 2019 U.S. Open that he always hated playing against Edberg because of Edberg's excellent kick serve to Lendl's one-handed backhand (and also undoubtedly because of Edberg's relentless serve-and-volley pressure). Lendl's best chance to win the Grand Slam was actually in 1986 when he won the French Open over Pernfors, the U.S. Open over Mecir and got to the finals of Wimbledon losing to Becker in straight sets - but unfortunately for Lendl (that is besides the loss to Becker in that year's Wimbledon final) there was no Australian Open held in December 1986 because Australian tennis officials decided to move that major to January so they understandably didn't want to schedule back-to-back Australian Opens in December 1986 and January 1987.

You mean the bad luck of losing in 3 of the 4 GS's? Most years one of the players gets 2 of the 4 GS's - and none of them come *_even close_* to being a calendar grand slam. Your logic of Lendl winning 1 out of 4 being 'very close' is just absurd.....

not at all, not in 1989. Actually Becker was the better player in that year which is why the ATP voted him PLayer of the year

I disagree that Lendl would not have win Wimbledon in 89 against Edberg had their not been the rain delay and he'd got past Becker for the very solid reason that he beat Edberg at Wimbledon in the semi the previous time they met and Edberg in 89 was not playing at his best as Becker demonstrated against him in the final. Becker probably still not knowing how the rain got him past Lendl absolutely dismantled Edberg and if you concede at very least that there was nothing between Boris (and the blinking rain) and Ivan in their match it is reasonable to say I think that it would have been third time lucky for Ivan in the final as he was a far better grass court player by then, better than 87 when he beat Edberg in 4 sets before.

Lendl was No 1 ranked by a country mile in 1989 and that was even without the Dallas Masters World Championship title that was basically stolen from him with one of the most disgraceful bad calls in the history of the sport. No wonder the guy was pissed off to the point of refusing to play. His results through the year were head and shoulders above Becker. Why don't people actually look at the other Master series results? The No1 is the most consistent but in Lendl's case by far the player with the most titles that season.

Yes - but you have no data. You're guessing - and no doubt badly. Have you timed a long rally from yesteryear vs a similar from today - and processed the numbers? I though not....Of course play was slower in those days - string, racquet, footware, conditioning, nutrition etc have all got way better. But I'd be surprised if it's more than 10-15% (ignoring the facet of points being more searching and strategic back then with players of contrasting styles). One things for sure: the fastest moving players nowadays are no faster than the fastest back then.

@@danguee1 you don't need data to see that it was way slower then compared to now.

You could say the same about Novak. Very robotic to watch. But the way you look is not synonymous with talent, obviously

@@Rowlph8888 Nasty Nastase bucked the trend in the 70s & should have won more but became tiresome with his rants long before McEnroe threw his tantrums.

@@Rowlph8888 Id say Novak is far more of a natural talent than Lendl. If you watch him in his younger days he is extremely fluid and nice to watch, however this wasnt winning him grand slams so he changed it up and became a far better match player but the style became robotic and clinical

@@Rowlph8888 Djokovic robotic? Have you ever seen him play?

@@Rowlph8888 robotic how? Novack is a beast on the courts … I’m sure only a die hard Rafa or Roger fan would call Novack robotic…

Lol

Look at Federer's two MPS on at Wimbledon 2019..Typically a player looking for a winner on MP on the tour these days loves the out swinger serve and that is where Roger failed to produce a serve of that nature...he went T on the second point which was extremely tactically disappointing..

Media brainwashing is a powerful tool. You just need to keep pushing a particular message long enough and the normies will believe it - whatever it is. It's depressing to realise that about your fellow man, but there ya go.

Poor Boris? He made his choices.

You're joking? Do you remember McEnroe? Connors?

@@uncletony6210and Nastase

Becker is much more charismatic IMO...