QUOTATIONS BY OR ABOUT MATS WILANDER

1982

On Sunday 6th June 1982, the anniversary of D-day and Bjorn Borg's coming, a boy of 17 was crowned as the youngest-ever French men's champion. Mats Wilander's Parisian triumph wasn't merely unexpected; it rocked the established order to its foundations. At the outset he hadn't a prayer; he wasn't even seeded...Wilander had overcome four of the world's greatest clay-court players to emerge as the first unseeded champion of France since Joseph Asboth in 1947. His tennis throughout embodied a calmness, patience, resilience and accuracy which Borg must have recognised and approved. "I just can't believe it", said Wilander after it was over. Who could? (David Irvine, World of Tennis 1983)

Mats Wilander was born in Vaxjo, Sweden, on 22nd August 1964, so that on Sunday 6 June 1982 he was 17 years and 288 days old. The significance of that date...is that it was the men's singles final in the French Championships at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris. For many of the public Wilander must have come out of the blue to win that title. Within the game he was, of course, far from unknown. In 1981 he had won the European Junior Championship and the junior tournament at Roland Garros, but he was not seeded for the French singles. In fact he came nowhere near such distinction, and one could look in vain for his name in the list of Grand Prix winners...Has any player before won a Grand Slam event without ever taking a Grand Prix tournament before? and at an age when, for most, the adult tennis world is still distant? Wilander supplanted Borg as the youngest male singles winner of a major title, younger than any winner of the U.S. title or the Wimbledon crown. (Lance Tingay, World of Tennis 1983)

No-one, not even Wilander, could have been prepared for what he would become in 1982. In the most astonishing event of the Open Tennis era, he won the French Open with victories over Lendl, Gerulaitis, Clerc and Vilas. That was his first Grand Prix tournament win and he became the youngest, at 17 years 9 months and six days, ever to win that Grand Slam event and also the first unseeded player to do so. (Steve Flink, World of Tennis 1983)

Best sportsmanship for 1982: Who else but the 17-year-old Swedish prodigy Mats Wilander for refusing to accept the match point he won - on an incorrect line call, he believed - against fourth-seeded José-Luis Clerc in the French Open semi-finals. "I don't want to win that way", he protested. (Tennis Times early 1983)

Mats was voted Sweden's Sportsman of the Year for 1982, an award that genuinely thrilled him. It was a choice for the voting public between him and the Gothenburg soccer team that won the European Cup Winners Cup. When they heard he had won the coveted award they sent him a telegram congratulating him and saying he got it because they put the ball into the net too many times. Wilander in his boyish way was genuinely delighted. (Tennis (GB), May 1983)