Ivan Lendl - Personal Life

Personal Life

Lendl was born into a tennis family in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). His parents were top players in Czechoslovakia. (His mother Olga was at one point ranked the no. 2 female player in the country). Lendl turned professional in tennis in 1978. He started to live in the United States in 1981, first at the home of mentor and friend, Wojtek Fibak. Later (in 1984), Lendl bought his own residence in Greenwich, Connecticut. Ivan applied for and received a U.S. Permanent Resident Card (also known as a Green Card) in 1987 and wanted to get U.S. citizenship as soon as possible to represent the USA in the 1988 Olympic Games and in the Davis Cup. A bill in Congress to bypass the traditional five-year waiting procedure was rejected in 1988 because Czechoslovak authorities refused to provide the necessary waivers. He became a U.S. citizen on July 7, 1992.

On September 16, 1989, six days after losing the final of the US Open to Boris Becker, Lendl married Samantha Frankel. They have five daughters: Marika (born May 4, 1990), twins Isabelle and Caroline (born July 29, 1991), Daniela (born June 24, 1993), and Nikola (born January 20, 1998). Lendl retired from tennis in 1994 at the age of 34 with a disability insurance payout for chronic backpain. He transferred his competitive interests to professional golf, where he achieved a win on the Celebrity Tour. Still competitive at the mini-tour levels, Lendl now devotes much of his time to managing the development of his daughters' golfing abilities. Two of his daughters (Marika and Isabelle) are members of the University of Florida Women's Golf Team. Daniela is a member of the University of Alabama Women's Golf Team. His daughter Caroline walked onto the University of Alabama Women's Rowing Team for the 2011–2012 academic year, and his daughter Nikola enjoys eventing horses.