Source: INDIAN RIVER COUNTY (TCPALM) — I’m trying to picture this in my mind.
Ivan Lendl playing tennis again — and just for fun.
Is he serious?
“You can be competitive,” the eight-time Grand Slam singles champion was saying the other day from his winter home at the Windsor Club, “and still have fun.”
Yes, I can.
Maybe you can, too.
But can he?
We’ll find out today at The Boulevard Village and Tennis Club, where Lendl will participate in the Fourth Annual Stan Smith Pro-Am to benefit Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Boys and Girls Club of Indian River County.
“I’m not sure how competitive this will be,” Lendl said of the fund-raising doubles event in which amateurs have paid $500 apiece to play alongside and against him, Smith, Roscoe Tanner, Dick Stockton and several local teaching pros. “You’re playing, too, aren’t you?”
Very funny.
But, yes, I am playing — as a guest of the organizer.
So he’s got a point.
In April, however, the level of competition moves up a few thousand notches.
That’s when Lendl will go to Atlantic City, N.J., to play a one-set exhibition against former rival Mats Wilander in the inaugural Caesars Tennis Classic, where the two Hall of Famers will be part of a three-match card with at least two other past U.S. Open champions, Andy Roddick and Marat Safin.
The exhibition, scheduled for April 10 at Boardwalk Hall, will be Lendl’s first publicized singles match since he retired from the ATP Tour in December 1994 amid chronic back pain that kept him off the courts until just over a year ago.
“I feel good about it,” Lendl said. “I feel I’m ready.”
Finally.
After all these years.
After a nagging bout with arthritis in his back, which hampered his play throughout the latter part of his career … and tearing a “piece of disc” and a ligament, an injury that occurred when he fell on some stairs after he retired … and, ultimately, finding a local doctor who came up with a way to ease his pain.
Lendl, who turns 50 next month, is back on the tennis court.
With his back feeling better, he picked up a racket just over a year ago and began hitting and training again. He has practiced with several local pros at Windsor, Grand Harbor and The Boulevard, as well as at his junior golf academy in Sarasota and while at his summer home in Connecticut.
Recently, he has been seen practicing with Mikael Pernfors, a former top-10 player who lives at The Boulevard.
“I enjoy it,” said Lendl, who, during his tennis-playing prime, was known for his workmanlike approach and all-business, no-nonsense demeanor on the court. “I didn’t play for 14 years because my back was terrible. The arthritis, the torn disc, the torn ligament — it was all in the same area. Walking was difficult. Even standing was difficult. But it’s getting better.
“It’s not 100 percent, but it’s a lot better than it was. I play three to four times a week, 60 to 90 minutes at a time. And I can train now and not get sore. So I’m getting in better shape, too, and that helps.”
It’s helps his back. It helps his tennis. It even helps his golf.
For those who don’t know: Lendl is quite the golfer.
He has played in numerous celebrity golf tournaments, and Golf Digest put him and his 2-handicap at No. 22 on its list of “Top 150 Athlete-Golfers,” which was released in the magazine’s November 2009 issue.
Now, though, he’s dividing his time between the course and the courts — which was his plan all along.
Lendl said he’s close to announcing the Florida site of Ivan Lendl’s Champions Academy, which currently is based in Sarasota as a school for promising junior golfers but will soon add a tennis wing. And it sounds as if he plans to be an active instructor.
“When you’re working with promising juniors,” he said, “I’ve found that it’s better to show them, not just tell them.”
On the tennis courts, at least, Lendl can show them the form that made him one of the game’s greatest champions. He reached 19 Grand Slam finals, including a record eight in a row at the U.S. Open, which he won three times. He won 94 singles titles in all and held the No. 1 ranking for a then-record 270 weeks.
And most longtime tennis observers consider Lendl, whose fitness and power separated him from his peers, the father of the modern game.
Of course, even Lendl has embraced the future: He no longer plays with the heavy, small-headed Adidas racket with which he dominated his era.
“I’m playing with a bigger frame and using the new strings,” Lendl said. “It’s easier to hit a lot of different shots.”
Those shots will be on display today at The Boulevard and — to a much greater extent, I’m sure — in April in Atlantic City. And Lendl said he’s looking forward to having fun in both events.
Even against Wilander.
“I don’t take it as seriously as I used to,” Lendl said. “But with Mats, I can assure you, nobody will want to lose.”
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