| Roland Garros 1986 + US Open 1993 |

During John McEnroe’s sabbatical, Ivan Lendl seemed untouchable; in Paris ’86 he won his seventh tournament of the year, having obtained a final and semifinal in two other appearances (46-2 record). He worked out perfection in keeping concentration through long period of time, and notched amazing, 13-, 12- and 9-game-winning streaks respectively, in his last three matches of the event! It was a time of absolute Swedish ascendancy. The Swedish tennis was producing new faces every year in the mid-80s. That year in Paris all four seeded Swedes surprisingly dropped before last 16, but popped out of nowhere two others in the second week: Ulf Stenlund – playing his first main-level tournament advanced easily to the fourth round (!) whilst Mikael Pernfors at his 17th event, stunned four seeds moving through to the final. Two-time Australian Open champion, 28-year-old Johan Kriek participated in his just second French Open, and surprised even himself reaching the semifinals. Read more…
US Open 1993 – it was a tournament of bizarre occurrences: within one hour two out of four longest Grand Slam tie-breaks in history took place in the first round; in the fourth round Wally Masur won the only recorded Grand Slam match losing 0:5 in the deciding set; seeds were dropping like flies; finally a guy with an aluminum racquet (Prince Magnesium; it was a time when all players were already using graphite ones) 24-year-old Cedric Pioline, who had never won an ATP title, advanced to the final! Pete Sampras was above all, he was enjoying the best period of his career (extended from Key Biscayne ’93 to Rome ’94) and grabbed the second US Open title without serious troubles. Read more…