Tennis: Wilander fires off a vicious backhander

By RONALD ATKIN

The name Mats Wilander still crops up when people talk about formidable backhands, laid-back lifestyles and tennis players who possess a way with a guitar.

But Wilander is best remembered, and deservedly so, as the last man to win three Grand Slams in the same year.

That was 1988 and Wilander, one of the three best players, along with Bjorn Borg and Stefan Edberg, to emerge from Sweden, booked his spot in history with that accomplishment.

The 38-year-old has been in London over the past few days, competing in the Honda Challenge seniors' at the Royal Albert Hall.

As he prepares to take up his new post as Sweden's Davis Cup captain, Wilander unveiled a searing opinion or two on the tour, which suggests his new role will be a lively one.

First, he laid into the present crop of professionals, many of whom he claims do not care enough. Nor was he afraid to name names, the most famous being that of Andre Agassi.

"He may not be the guy who started it, but Agassi will come to Europe and lose first round and seemingly doesn't care.

"People like that should be shown that it is not allowed. If you don't care you have no space on the professional level in any sport.

"That attitude hurts me and somebody needs to tell it."

Wilander was also critical of Marat Safin, whom he coached for 12 months until the start of this year.

Getting back into the men's game as Safin's mentor opened his eyes, Wilander says.

"There are great players who can hit the ball unbelievably well, yet there are some who have really bad body language, like Marat sometimes; who look like they don't care. It does not matter how many great matches you have, that's what people remember.

"You would never see an American Football player who didn't care. First, he would get destroyed, then thrown out of the team. It is exactly the same in soccer and ice hockey.

"Yet in tennis you have these guys who just show they don't care. That never used to happen in the seventies and eighties - never."

Nor does Wilander think there is such a creature as the perfect player.

"Pete Sampras certainly isn't perfect. He has a very limited backhand. Safin would be if he had the head of Jimmy Connors; then he would be unbeatable."

Safin certainly looked unbeatable on the September day two years ago when he destroyed Sampras to win the US Open. Wilander was watching and told a French friend that if he ever got around to coaching someone he would like it to be Safin.

The French acquaintance passed on the message when he found himself on the same ski slope as Safin. It did not last because Wilander, with a wife and four children at his mountain home in Hailey, Idaho, was mainly concerned with motivating the Russian for Grand Slams, while Safin wanted a coach to travel with him 35 weeks a year.

"Marat was looking for a coach and a friend in the same person," said Wilander. "I can be a coach or I can be a friend but I can't be both.

"I am not the type to do all the crap. What I wanted to do was to raise his level of intensity before the Grand Slams, because it is then you need a totally different attitude to take you through to the second week. But that will go away if you spend 30 weeks together.

"He is a great guy, but we stopped at the end of last year and at the Australian Open in January he had three blondes in his box instead of me."

Wilander, who won 43 of his 61 Davis Cup matches in 11 years, was the man the Swedish players asked for when Carl-Axel Hageskog gave up the captaincy last summer. He accepted a three-year contract.

"I thought maybe I would take such a job when I was 45 or so, but this seemed like a good time because the guys I played with, like [Thomas] Enqvist and [Jonas] Bjorkman, are still in the squad.

"We all need to work together to try to make the sport grow again, because it is really shrinking in Sweden."

Wilander, who has lived in the US for 14 years, will not move back to Sweden to do the job, in which he will be assisted by former Davis Cup player Joakim Nystrom.

"My idea is to spend 10 weeks or so there."

Even that amount of time marks a welcome return to the sport of someone who dropped from world No 1 in 1988 to 327 five years later, mainly because of injury, and who retired in 1996 after testing positive for cocaine while playing doubles at the 1995 French Open, which brought a three-month ban.

Wilander has enjoyed returning to the Albert Hall, where his best memory came through wielding not a racket, but a guitar.

"They brought all the tennis guys who could play an instrument to London for a charity show. I played Knocking on Heaven's Door and the first chord I hit in that hall was just amazing. I thought, 'Wow'."