Tennis: New deal for Kafelnikov

Ronald Atkin on the champion who is back in town this week

FOR SOMEONE with the supreme talent and single-minded drive of Yevgeny Kafelnikov, winning three tournaments in 1998 had to be classified as disappointing. One of those titles was the Guardian Direct Cup in London, and he will bound back into the tented tournament at Battersea this week a changed man. New coach, new motivation, newly captured Australian Open dangling from his trophy belt.

The fair-haired Russian, who turned 25 last Thursday, has soared to second in the world rankings, his highest ever, and he has suddenly become the likeliest challenger to end the six-year domination of Pete Sampras. Kafelnikov was similarly hailed when, in 1996, he won his first Grand Slam, the French Open, but the 32 months and seven tournament victories which followed merely emphasised the skills of someone committed to running endless miles in pursuit of money.

With his pudding-basin hairdo, long baggy shorts and spare 6ft 3in frame, Kafelnikov did not remotely resemble what he was called, the iron man of the ATP Tour. Yet in four of the last five years he has played more matches, singles and doubles, than anyone. Only in 1997, when he was out for three months with a fractured finger, was Kafelnikov forced to give best to Jonas Bjorkman.

In the post-Soviet chaos of his native land, Kafelnikov opted to fatten his wallet by turning out at every money-making opportunity, rather like the Ivan Lendl of old. A knee injury suffered in a skiing accident lopped a month off his 1998 season, which was in mid- summer doldrums when he married his long-time girlfriend, Mascha, in July and became a father to Aleysa three months later. "That freed his mind," said Kafelnikov's new coach, the American Larry Stefanki.

By then Kafelnikov had already decided on a new course of action. He had ditched his long-time mentor, Anatoly Lepeshin, and was making his way alone. At the US Open last September he approached Stefanki and they agreed a coaching deal commencing on the first of this year. Stefanki was newly available. Having coached Marcelo Rios to a brief lodgement as the world No 1, Stefanki promptly received a fax from the charmless Chilean informing him he was sacked.

Stefanki's most pressing task has been to persuade his man to step off the treadmill. "Yevgeny is strong-minded and you can't convince somebody like him in two minutes," he said at the Rotterdam tournament last week. "But to get to the top that way is exhausting. At 25 you can handle it physically but you can get mentally fatigued. I don't want to stifle his competitiveness, but I would like him to cut back on tournaments. My deal is for him to play the lead-up tournaments to the Grand Slams, win the Slams and get to No 1. That's the way I coach. Other tournaments are something you use to keep sharp."

Not that Stefanki is belittling the Battersea event. "Yevgeny is coming to London expecting to defend his title successfully. If you enter a tournament and you are in the top four you go there to win. That's also something I coach.

"But what has happened is a lot to do with him. He knows the clock is ticking and he wanted another Slam in the worst possible way. No matter how great a coach you may be, unless the player decides to make some changes in the direction he is going it doesn't really matter, and it took him a while to decide on the changes," Stefanki said.

"He had always been a grinder but was no longer grinding. Yet he is multi- dimensional because of all the doubles he plays. We have worked a lot on his serve and he is coming to the net a lot more. He is also an exceptional returner of serve."

Despite a work-rate which might once have made him a Hero of the Soviet Union, Kafelnikov insists he is "a bit lazy". Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that he comes from, and still makes his home in, the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

He was a beneficiary of his country's time of turmoil, being brought up under the well-drilled Soviet system and then being able to travel freely and keep all his prize-money when the old regime fell apart. A committed member of Russia's Davis Cup team, Kafelnikov says the sight of so much poverty and misery in his homeland disturbs him. But does he feel guilt at being a multi-millionaire? "Not at all. I deserve what I have got."

What Kafelnikov has indisputably got is an excellent shot at the No 1 spot. He is only some 300 ranking points behind Sampras and after Battersea he will travel immediately to America for a heavy training spell at Stefanki's home in La Quinta, a few miles down the California desert road from the site of the year's next big tournament, the Super Nine event at Indian Wells in early March.

The two men will practise the sort of drills Kafelnikov says he hasn't been put through since he was 15. "Tournaments are won or lost on preparation, as far as I am concerned," Stefanki said. "So Yevgeny won't be showing up a day ahead of the event in future. I want to maintain what we have achieved so far. It has been a dream start, a lick at the cherry of a Grand Slam while by-passing the sundae of the number one ranking."