Ivan Lendl vs John McEnroe Final Canadian Open 1989

[@Kishorefoodenmee]

Lendl will go on after this to his 8th USO finals, a record that is one of the greatest in men's tennis and will never be broken. Unfortunately he lost the finals to Becker.

[@stevephlyer]

It’s interesting to see how much faster those hard courts were compared to today’s. Lendl is extremely powerful here but McEnroe still looks overall (talent and shot variety) a more complete and interesting player to watch. He did not play badly here, it was just that Lendl was unbeatable that day and for most of the year. McEnroe had defeated Lendl in their previous match a couple of months before this encounter.

[@carmendunbar4172]

Great power from Lendl. He is still wonderful to watch.

[@homerjs225]

17:49 Brutal backhand

[@martenx1384]

Mac had an enormous advantage with his advanced racket technology (Max 200g) in 84, but he didn't raise his game, a game just based on serve and volley, amazing touch and weak ground strokes. Lendl and Connors held on to their old racket technology which kind of damaged their career in 84. Lendl improved by far after 84 (training, fitness and mentally). The result can be seen here.

[@massimilianobergamaschi7434]

In his early years McEnroe had a good baseline game, but later with top players It wasnt enough.

[@SuperHammaren]

Lendl used similar racket until 90 something right and Connors used his metal one on and off until 86! And yes, a big part of Mcenroes big 84 year was due to the new racket being mastered to the full.

[@ataoso71]

Is not a machine, it just Lendl in a good working day...

[@miguel6440]

un des meilleurs match du tcheque impressionnant de maitrise et de puissance face à Mac moins rapide qu'avant.

[@robertcampbell5769]

By this time Lendl had overtaken their rivalry. He completely overpowered Mac. Mac had no answers anymore. Power tennis.

[@drumtum]

Wow they sure were praising Brad Gilbert during this match. Lendl vs Gilbert head to head, 16-0 just to let you know.

[@davidr2802]

I see the teeth were fixed

[@ddb787]

wow: I just stopped watching after the 1st set. Reason: Lendl is playing tennis utopia and J. McEnroe looks like an opponent/player of almost 1.5 levels of lower league, crazy!

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

McEnroe was clearly very talented, but his game was just too limited; he relied too heavily on that serve. The serve had to be good to set up the volley. So if the serve wasn't perfect or near-perfect (against the likes of Lendl), he'd have precious little else to fall back on, especially since his baseline rallies were decent/quite good only. The backhand slice was usually just struck as a way to bide his time, trying to keep the point neutral, until he could seize an opportunity to move forward. Although Mac was capable of effective backhands, the backhand, like the baseline forehand, was not nearly consistent enough to trouble Lendl much (from the mid 80s onwards). The fact that McEnroe didn't have the best, most rigorous work ethic didn't help either. He could have learned a thing or two from Lendl in that department. As for Lendl, the inconsistent serving aside, he played masterfully. I've long admired his game, and have long felt he was denigrated and underappreciated (during much of his career). Probably the greatest male player of the 80s, a fine thinker on the court.

[@jasoncowell5133]

McEnroe is the best player of the 80s. Anyone who has followed tennis can appreciate that.

[@Kishorefoodenmee]

Probably the greatest player of the 80s? and for the fellow below me, Lendl was named the best player of the 80s. The debate is already settled. I remember McEnroe was not very happy.

[@JD-jc8gp]

Mac's game was definitely limited for power tennis. It wasn't built for it.

[@michaelbarlow6610]

@ Yakov Mitchenko. John McEnroe's game was not "limited" as you mischaracterize it. McEnroe at his best had the most diverse game of any player in the Open era of tennis because in 1983 and 1984, not only could he sustain long rallies with opponents like Lendl and Connors (and from 1978-1981 with Borg) waiting patiently for a short ball to approach the net off of, but his serve-and-volley play was at its peak in those two years. Plus he could hit superb drop shots, forehand topspin lobs (one of the best forehand topspin lobs in history), soft backhand drives down the middle of the court to force the opponent (such as Connors) at the net to volley up and to generate all the pace on the ball to induce an error from the opponent, flat, underspin, sidespin and topspin approach shots, and stop volleys and drop volleys. His backhand passing shot at its best was excellent - just look at the two superb, crosscourt backhand passes he hit against Borg in the key game in the 3rd set of the 1981 U.S. Open final against Borg to break Borg's serve and change the momentum in that match! The two major weaknesses in McEnroe's game were (1) his lack of great stamina in long matches because he neglected for too long to work on off-court physical fitness conditioning, and (2) his down-the-line forehand was always spotty because he had a tendency to hit it a fraction of a second too late resulting in the ball landing too frequently in the doubles alley. But in 1984 he hit his forehand (even his problematic down-the-line forehand) very well.

[@lawrencegarrison3792]

Lendl wins.

[@markthomas3730]

crappy video quality