Legends’ Voice – Roland-Garros – Wilander on his final against Noah: “I was clearly overconfident”

When Mats Wilander met Yannick Noah on June 5, 1983 to face the local hero and the whole of France in the Roland-Garros final, he appeared as the logical favorite. At least, that’s how he sees himself.

Defending champion, winner of 36 of his last 37 matches on clay, the Swede could only consider himself a winner.

But he didn’t see it coming. Assaulted and dominated tactically, a first for him, especially on clay, Mats lost in three sets (6-2, 7-5, 7-6). Forty years later, he remembers a day he has not forgotten.

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“For me, Yannick was a complete stranger in 1983. I knew Ivan Lendl because we had met in 1978 in Czechoslovakia where he had won at the under 18s and I the under 14s. Of course, I also saw him play the final against Björn Borg in 1981 at Roland-Garros, so he had been around for a while and I had played against him enough times to know him. at all familiar as a tennis player. He had played little in the juniors, and everything about him was different. His way of playing, of behaving, of dressing, etc.

Yannick was even more unknown to me as a private person, because I had never said a word to him. I started to discover it a little in the spring of 1983 when we played against each other in Lisbon in the final (April 1983). Yannick was there with his girlfriend at the time. I don’t think he had his coach with him. So she was in the stands. I thought that was pretty cool. For various reasons, the cool side was very important to me at the time.

So here we are, fighting, playing a tough match and his girlfriend, she’s sunbathing in the stands! I think she was even in a bathing suit. I remember that she was clapping a little, she was following the match from quite a distance. I thought to myself “my God, this is so relaxed”. That’s how I learned a little more about Yannick but, to sum up, I had no idea who he really was.

Before the French Open final, it wasn’t particularly good news for me that Yannick beat Lendl in the quarterfinals because at the beginning, when I faced Lendl on clay, I honestly wasn’t afraid of him. at the time. We had faced each other in the round of 16 in 1982 at Roland-Garros and I had won in 5 sets, then in Barcelona the same year after the US Open and I believe I had won in two sets. I don’t think he was trying very hard. He was a little intimidated, or scared, by the fact that I kept the ball in play or it was something else, I don’t know.

But Yannick didn’t worry me either. In Lisbon, in the final, it was very hot and dry and the court was quite fast. He had match points but I managed to win, which gave me confidence. He then beat me in Hamburg, but the court was very heavy and it was not a good thing for me against Yannick because his slice didn’t bounce at all. So I said to myself that Lisbon was more like Roland-Garros than Hamburg and that I had won in Lisbon. And then, in Paris, it’s 5 sets. It’s to my advantage. Me, with my game, I don’t get tired. Yannick, he will be worn out at some point because he will have to work a lot coming to the net, slicing, running and all the rest. So I felt overwhelmingly favourite.

The possibility of not winning this final never crossed my mind. Of course, there is always a risk, but I didn’t think about it at all. I said to myself ‘whatever he does, I will have an answer, and we play in three winning sets. And I think that was my biggest mistake. For the first hour of the final I had absolutely no solutions and when I started to find them it was too late.

You have to understand one thing: when I played on clay, especially in 5 sets, at Roland-Garros, a lot of points were alike. It involved hitting a high forehand on the backhand. There, either the opponent played a slice, or he tried to defend, then I went on his forehand, I made him run a little and then I came back: backhand, forehand. So I’m going to repeat the same pattern over and over again in this finale. I had the fate of the match in my racquet on earth, always. Against Yannick, I was convinced that would still be the case. But that feeling only lasted a very, very short time…

I can’t remember exactly when I was like ‘Damn, I don’t know what to do’, but what was clear was that he was playing differently than I expected. His forehand is a little better, he goes up to the net leaning on it. I thought he was going to go long, but no, he wasn’t. On the contrary, he played short, on the service line, especially with his backhand slice. Right from the start, he asked me a whole bunch of questions that were very different tactically and I couldn’t come up with an answer that made sense to me. I just wasn’t ready.

What troubled me the most was that he wasn’t just looking to hit the slice with his backhand and get on the net. No, he also served and volleyed, or came to the net after a high forehand, etc. So the combination of all these different ways of earning points for him happened so quickly in the game that I wasn’t dealing with a tactical issue, but five or six at the same time before I figured out what was happening to me. Added to this is the public. Already during the warm-up, for what I remember, we heard huge “OUUUUUUUI” as soon as Yannick hit the ball. Wow. What is happening ? Is it the Davis Cup or what? In short, there were too many elements of surprise that I was not ready to solve.

I was clearly overconfident. But understand me. We are in 1983. On clay. The guy who constantly goes up to the net does not exist. The guy who’s going to play backhand slices and high forehands to get into the net against me isn’t even born yet. It shouldn’t be a problem for me. But I realized, too late, that Yannick was different because he was athletic. Players who tried to net against me on a surface like this weren’t athletic. Yannick was. Super athletic.

As a result, the lob was not a shot I could count on. The passing had to be ultra-precise and powerful to make the difference because Yannick was so big and so flexible. And then he had a fantastic hand at the net when the ball was away from him. John McEnroe, for example, had an exceptional volleyball hand when the ball was on him. But Yannick was doing very well even when he had to play his volley away from the body, in extension, precisely thanks to his exceptional physical qualities. So everything I did perfectly, he responded to it physically. And that had never happened to me before on earth. Never.

I wonder why I didn’t realize this sooner. There had been Lisbon and Hamburg, of course, but I told myself that these were the conditions, the three sets. So yeah, I was way too confident. But I wouldn’t say it’s because of that. Simply, Yannick’s level of play was so much higher than what I had seen before and probably after this final, although of course he played a lot of great matches afterwards. And honestly, once I found the solution, I became a spectator, just happy to finally give it some real opposition. What is certain is that there was not a single moment when I felt like I was better than him that day. It was a very unpleasant feeling.

During the match, I was not disappointed not to win. I was more confused that I couldn’t find an answer. Normally, when I played important matches, I found an answer. That doesn’t mean that I always won the match, but I was able to find some form of response. For example, against John McEnroe, I tried to get to the net a little more often and a little earlier than him to deprive him of the initiative. Same thing with Stefan Edberg. I have always counted on my ability to find solutions to feel a little more comfortable.

But not against Yannick, that day. I couldn’t figure out when he was going to play deep, when he was going to play short, when he was going to get the drop shot, etc. It was very confusing in my head. He could play five consecutive points and offer five different options. At the time, nobody played like that. It was new for me, especially on clay.

Yannick once said that if he hadn’t won in three sets, he would have lost in five. Frankly, I don’t know and I’m not sure at all. It’s very hard to say, of course. Let’s say I win the third set tie-break and Yannick feels tired, which he did, but I didn’t see it at the time. OK. It needs 15 or 20 minutes to recover. He lets go, and suddenly I win the 4th set 6-1. Two sets everywhere.

Except now it’s cooler again and I’m going to be more nervous because I came back from nowhere and I always thought that if you come back from two zero sets, the pressure is on you. The fifth set would probably have looked more like the second, which had been tight. But knowing me, I probably would have gone back to playing a little more to not lose than to try to win, because it worked for so many tournaments for me. It was my way. Yannick, he would have done Yannick like at the start of the match. It is therefore very likely that he would have won this final in five sets.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

On Wednesday, in the second part, Mats Wilander will return to the importance for him of this lost final, and its positive consequences, from his decision to make lasting changes to his game to his relationship and his friendship with Yannick Noah.