Prop Up Mac

One of the odd things about covering the US Open is that my exposure to the commentary on USA Network or CBS is limited; when I sit at my work station, I usually watch a feed from an outside court where there are no commentators. Sometimes I'm writing (like now), and I don't have the headphones on; once in a while I glance up to check the scores or the progress of a match. So in a way it's a novelty for me to sit on my couch at home and watch a match the way most people do, listening to the commentary.

That's just what I did last night, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Andy Roddick/Justin Gimelstob match. Commentary is always informative and, from a journalist's point-of-view, often helpful. But last night I got a little upset about something I heard - or, more accurately, didn't hear.

John McEnroe and Ted Robinson were doing their usual thing. I don't know about you, but it seems to me more and more that Robinson is the Ed McMahon to McEnroe's Johnny Carson. Ted just tees up these questions/comments, a fair number of which are, frankly, flattering to McEnroe. Then John does that foot-shuffling, aw-shucks, modesty thing, and ends up looking like a humble guy. BTW, I know that Mac is self-effacing, and averse to being an object of worship, although that doesn't change the fact that he has a big, healthy ego. In a way, the blame for this transparent prop-up-Mac pattern should fall on Robinson, or the USA producers who encourage this trite Carson-McMahon style partnership.

At one point last night, USA showed one of those MassMutual spots, where they highlight a great US Open achievement - in this case, it was Jimmy Connors having won the US Open title on three different surfaces (grass, clay and hard). It was a fitting choice; Connors was sitting right there in the stands, slightly more round of face and tummy and wearing glasses, as the coach of Andy Roddick. When Robinson and McEnroe returned, they did one of those Carson-McMahon schticks; I think Robinson teed it up by observing that the very first tennis match he ever covered was a McEnroe-Connors final (in San Francisco), and he referred to making the assumption then that all tennis was like Mac vs. Jimbo tennis - which really meant, "Wow, I got to see you and Jimmy and I was foolish and naive enough to think every match and player was as utterly compelling and rockin' as you guys!"

As usual, McEnroe low-roaded it. But then the two men got into an extensive discussion about Jimmy, and eventually Robinson observed what a special moment it was for him - personally, speaking from the heart, of course! - to see John, Jimmy and Bjorn Borg stroll across Centre Court together earlier this year at Wimbledon. They talked a little bit about rivalries, and then they flashed the McEnroe vs. Connors head-to-head up on the screen, showing that McEnroe led, 20-14. So Robinson and McEnroe  talked a little  bit about how tough Jimmy and Bjorn were (Borg was 7-7 against McEnroe), and it struck me that neither of them chose to mention Ivan Lendl.

Okay, I'm not watching USA or CBS telecasts on any regular basis; for all I know, Robinson and McEnroe were going ga-ga over Lendl at the US Open 24/7 until that Roddick match I watched last night, and they might be right back at it now. But somehow I don't think so, because Lendl has always been the forgotten man of the US Open. If you don't believe me, just ask yourself when you last saw a Lendl match telecast during a rain delay (just for the record, the best danged tennis match I ever saw was the 1984 Lendl vs. Mats Wilander US Open final), or how often he's been in one of those commercially sponsored historical highlights.

Dudes - Lendl made the US Open final eight years in a row. Worse yet, if you're a Mac or Jimbo guy, he utterly dominated both of those guys. He was 21-15 vs. McEnroe and 22-13 against Connors. He swept Connors aside, punishing that dodgy Jimbo serve to put Connors back on his heels every blessed time he upchucked a ball into the other court; he bombarded McEnroe with bludgeoning forehands and whistling backhand passing shots, as if to say, Get that artsy-fartsy dink and chip game outta here, kid.

No less an authority than Pete Sampras puts Lendl into a conversation where Connors and McEnroe don't show up: the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) debate. "To me, if you want to be considered the GOAT you have to have dominated the guys you played against," Pete told me. "Ivan did that, and so did Borg. Those other guys didn't." Connors-Borg? Jimbo was 8-13 against the Swede, although he kicked Bjorn's butt in the trash-talking and braggadocio departments.

Oh, you can say that Lendl caught Mac and Connors as they were peaking and going into relative decline but that could also be said of Mac and his inconclusive 7-7 record against Borg. McEnroe did drive Borg into retirement, no doubt about it. But it wasn't like Bjorn was going to play for another decade if McEnroe hadn't popped up. Mac caught Borg in the Swede's waning days. You can de-construct and break down the record all you want, taking all kinds of factors into account, but in the end all you have is the Grand Slam records and head-to-heads, and they show that the Connors-McEnroe rivalry was spirited and lively, but Lendl owned both of them.

But you won't hear that coming from the broadcast booths or out of the various spin machines at Flushing Meadows, and that blows. Let me amend that: I haven't heard it, in my periodic ventures into TV land. But I hope they have the integrity to give Lendl his due - maybe even have Robinson ask Mac about the Lendl dilemma: Say, Johnny Mac, how come that guy beat you like a dusty carpet? Sure Mac and Connors hated Ivan. Sure Lendl often was a nasty piece of work on the court - a stoic, arrogant, heartless, ruthless, relentless and remorseless chain-saw of a tennis player. So what? This isn't a Mr. Popularity contest.

Or is it?

The overarching irony, of course, is that Lendl was always the ultra-straight, "square", establishment guy, while McEnroe was the rebel and anti-establishment helion. Today, Lendl is, if not exactly forgotten (it's awfully hard to keep ignoring that little thing called his public record), then routinely ignored. Of course, Lendl has helped that process by turning his back on the game and showing zippo interest in having an active relationship with it. McEnroe, taking the other route, has inserted himself squarely at the center of the world tennis culture - a rebel who, it is now clear, was less interested in destroying the establishment than in taking it over. There's not a lot of love for Lendl in this new alignment, but then there never was much of that in the first place. It's a good thing that doesn't trouble Lendl any more now than it did back in the day, when all he did was beat everyone.