French Open Final 1981 Borg Lendl

Ivan Lendl takes Bjorn Borg to five sets in the French Open Tennis Final 1981

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Ivan
• Lendl
• Bjorn
• Borg
• 1981
• French Open
• Tennis
• Rolland Garros

[59lespaul2]

@carlo88moe I think you misunderstood my comment. Yes, it was a generalization so i am ta fault for that, but I hear many club pro's today make comments about how they would crush Borg or Connors. OK, maybe, but put a wood racket in their hands with everything being equal- age, technology and skill level and lets see. Skill is skill no matter what stick you are using. The game has evolved because of technology...it happens to every sport. I don't believe one era is better than the next.

[apun94]

players of different generations can never be compared against each other, because each generation has different style of play, technology etc....

[custardaghost]

@ARTZY64

"..way back in the 70s" ?

Vilas and Wilander played the final in 1982. Even then, Wilander was only 17.

FWIW the worst moonball culprit in recent tennis was Conchita Martinez. She even tried it as a tactic at Wimbledon - I can remember seeing her doing it about 12 years, when up against a youngster called Justine Henin. She got clobbered.

[ditzeliu]

Wow, wow....

[dmh091]

Borg's footwork is far superior to Lendl's

[chapaev36]

@IricForset Again, Lendl is moving badly because this is late in the match. If you want to see poor movement, watch Coria-Gaudio at the 2004 Roland Garros. The difference between a match in 1981 and today in which a player is struggling physically, is that this player can simply "go for it" and hit riskier and harder shots. But this was much harder to do in the past when racquet technology was less forgiving if you tried to hit the lines. Here, Lendl is reduced to bunting the ball back.

[chapaev36]

@goodyears73 Lendl does barely move here. This is the last game of the fifth set. When Lendl was a young man, as he is here, hit fitness was often questioned. Here he is visibly spent after being on the court for 3+ hours, playing long rallies like this.

[chapaev36]

@XrenegadeZ There are many reasons why older players competed into their 30s in the past but don't now. And it's not what you think. a) players made less money, which left more incentive to remain in the game longer, b) the game was more geared to finesse and technique and less to physicality, c) players like Laver did not turn pro until around the age of 23, which meant that they had much less mileage on them at that age than Nadal at 23. Borg at 25 had comparable mileage to Laver at 30+.

[ARTZY64]

They can't run because their shorts are too tight

[ARTZY64]

The only way to rank players accurately is to add up their Grand Slam victories. Nothing else matters.

[ARTZY64]

@paradorn7 If you think that's bad, a French Open final way back in the 70s between Mats Wilander and Guillermo Vilas was an absolute moonball-fest. I'm sure thousands of people slashed their wrists during that joke of a match. Thank God Lendl came along and introduced some power to the game.

Even Navratilova jokes about those days, saying 'we barely had to move.'

[melande1966]

@Souren17

they were in the final set