FROM ECUADOR WITH LOVE: LASTING LEGACY OF ANDRÉS GÓMEZ

From Ecuador, With Love

By Chris Oddo

The lasting legacy of Andrés Gómez’s 1990 title lives on in the sport and among the people of Ecuador .

One match does not make a career but in the case of Andrés Gómez, the 1990 Roland Garros final helped solidify his place in the tennis pantheon and as one of one of the best sportsmen in Ecuador’s history.

The true impact of Gómez’s title could be felt in Paris the very instant he cracked a last majestic forehand winner past Andre Agassi on Court Philippe Chatrier. The Ecuadorian, now 30 years old and in his own words in the “sunset” of his career, stretched his arms skyward and his smile stretched as wide as the tribunes of the fabled Court Philippe Chatrier.

The ecstasy of the moment! It was as if he could not quite fathom what he had done.

“Yeah, it’s just surreal,” Gómez told Tennis Now in a recent phone interview. “It still is. It’s hard to describe.”

The shockwaves could also be felt in Gómez’s hometown of Guayaquil, Ecuador, and all over the country in fact, as Gómez would find when he arrived home in the brief window of time after Roland Garros and before Wimbledon.

The affable champion played tennis with the president of Ecuador and took part in a parade that blew his mind. Gómez says he could look in both directions, as far as the eye could see, and still he could not see the end of the procession.

Ecuador had never had a Grand Slam champion before. Never a World Cup winner. The country is a champion of natural beauty, Home to the renowned Galapagos Islands, incredible forests and beautiful beaches, but until Gómez worked his magic in 1990 in Paris, it had never experienced this kind of notoriety as a sporting nation.

And it hasn’t since.

That is part of the reason that Gómez’s title will forever be considered remarkable, both for Ecuador and for South America, but it is not the only reason. Gómez’s story is also a story of perseverance and a story of holding fast to family values and the things that really matter in life. It’s also a story of improbability. At 30 years of age, with a new coach, after so many tough losses at Roland Garros, who really thought that it would be the big man from Ecuador that would pull out the title in 1990?

Tennis Hall of Famer and historian Steve Flink told me that very few so-called experts believed that it was going to be Gómez’s year at Roland Garros in 1990. Most thought that 20-year-old Andre Agassi, the electrifying new kid on the block and the express bullet train headed to the future of our sport, would make his ascent to the clay-court throne.

“That was really the prevailing view, not that Agassi would kill him, but he would win that match comfortably enough, because he was destined to do these things, you know he had picked up his experience in 1988 and 1989 and this was going to be the moment when he won his first major.”

Hence the underdog vibe that Gómez carried on that fateful Sunday in Paris, and really throughout the whole fortnight. Nobody had him pegged as a champion. And yet, what many

didn’t know is that the Ecuadorian was playing with fierce pride and love in his heart. Married for four years to his wife Anna, he took great joy in their life together and in the recent birth of their first son, Juan Andrés, who was two and a half in June of 1990. He also was guided by the spirt of his father, whom he had lost at a young age and always kept close to his heart.

“I lost my father when I was 18 so he never had a chance to see me play professionally but he always was a big influence on me,” Gómez told Tennis Now. “When he passed away my family needed to do things to get back together, not only emotionally but financially.”

His lifelong friend, compatriot and Davis Cup teammate Raul Viver says that a part of Andrés was always playing for his father.

“I think he always had that will, that will to succeed since a very early age, I think when Andrés’ father died when he was very young, he was only 18,” he told Tennis Now. “I think from that moment I could see that he was even more dedicated, his goal was to succeed in tennis, to make it as a pro, I think his father was always close to him with his tennis and I believe that when his father died Andrés matured a lot, maybe he was thinking of doing it for his father.”

There was (and still is) undoubtedly a soulful element to Gómez the person. The bloodlines run deep in his world, and in 1990 he played as if guided by an invisible hand.

Much has been made of the fact that Ivan Lendl, his longtime nemesis at Roland Garros, was not in the draw that year. The great Czech wanted to dedicate his time to winning Wimbledon and decided to skip Paris so that he could realize his lifelong dream.

But we must give full credit to Gómez for taking full advantage of the opportunity and turning Lendl’s

quest for Wimbledon into his own passion play in Paris.

Losses to Lendl aside (there were four at Roland Garros including three in the quarter-finals in ’84, ’86 and ’87) we must take stock of the absolute tour de force that the Ecuadorian was when he was in his prime on the clay. A gifted athlete who improvised well at the net, his true calling card was his punishing forehand and unrelenting baseline game. He was one of the first guys to say “Screw long rallies, I can end points on my terms,” even on the slow red clay of Roland Garros.

He took pride in the fact that he was one of the ones ushering this new style of hyped-up aggression.

His nephew Nicolas Lapentti, a former World No. 6, told me that Gómez “Had the whole country hitting forehands with this very heavy western grip.”

“All the kids of my generation, we were hitting our forehands like he did,” he said.

Other pros and peers concur. The Ecuadorian could drop the hammer even in the days before larger racquet heads and spin-enhancing polyester strings.

“He had a heavy forehand,” says Brad Gilbert. “Lot of spin for that time. Balls didn’t jump as much off the court as they do today, but I can only imagine him playing with poly strings now – his forehand would be… a lot of problems to deal with.”

Gomez had much more than the forehand, though. You don’t get 21 singles titles and 34 more on the doubles court without having a diverse arsenal and a high tennis IQ. The southpaw could hit spots with his serve, clean up at the net with great feel and change pace or defend with his knifing backhand slice.

In the spring of 1990 he had it all, except for a Roland Garros title.

That would change on June 10, 1990 as Gómez hit all the high notes in his four-set victory over Agassi. The American had chances in the fourth set as he desperately tried to stretch the old man to a fifth, but by that time Gómez was playing on another

planet. His dad in his heart. His wife in the stands behind his coach, the great Pato Rodriguez. The French crowd going wild – don’t they just adore their upsets?

This was a man that had been groomed for this moment all his life. He had traveled to the United States and trained under the critical eye of the legendary Aussie Harry Hopman and then took his show on the road.

This was the moment to pay it all back.

Moments after that forehand sailed past Agassi, Gómez emerged from a tunnel with his baby Juan Andrés in his arms, to hug his wife and celebrate with his team. The baby he had not planned on, but the staff at Roland Garros was wise enough to intercept him and hand the kid over before he made it to his wife in the crowd.

It was yet another perfect moment in the perfect day for Gómez. The tennis was about is good as it could be. The celebration? Even better… “When the match finished I just wanted to embrace them,” Gómez told Tennis Now. “My brother was there, some of my family members were there, and I just knew I needed to get a hug from my wife and that was the first thing that I reacted to. ‘I just want to get a hug. I just want to get a hug,’ because she went through hard years, very hard years.”

Thirty years later Gómez’s plans to return to Roland Garros to celebrate his anniversary have been thwarted by the pandemic…, but in his heart a piece of him will always be there. And in Ecuador he’ll always be a hero.

The moment itself may have marked the beginning of the end for the Ecuadorian’s tennis career, but in terms of his life it meant so much more.