Thursday, May. 21, 2009
Lendl/McEnroe — 1984
Nineteen eighty-four was John McEnroe's "annus mirabilis" — he went 82-3, a record not even Roger Federer has matched. But in his only appearance in a French Open final, a febrile McEnroe seemed to crave victory too much: after winning the first two sets easily, he became rattled by noise coming from the headset of a cameraman early in the third set and began to unravel. Ivan Lendl applied his characteristically unwavering ground strokes to win 3-6, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5 in a match that exposed the tragic flaw in McEnroe's genius.