Digging a little deeper, here are Lendl and his opponents' seedings in those slam finals that he lost.
1981 French Open - Lendl seed 5 lost to Borg seed 1
1982 US Open - Lendl seed 3 lost to Connors seed 2
1983 US Open - Lendl seed 2 lost to Connors seed 3
1983 Australian Open - Lendl seed 1 lost to Wilander seed 3
1984 US Open - Lendl seed 2 lost to McEnroe seed 1
1985 French Open - Lendl seed 2 lost to Wilander seed 5
1986 Wimbledon - Lendl seed 1 lost to Becker seed 4
1987 Wimbledon - Lendl seed 2 lost to Cash seed 11
1988 US Open - Lendl seed 1 lost to Wilander seed 2
1989 US Open - Lendl seed 1 lost to Becker seed 2
1991 Australian Open - Lendl seed 3 lost to Becker seed 2
So out of the 11 slam finals that Lendl lost, in fact, he was the higher ranked seed on 7 occasions, meaning he was in all likelihood the favourite to win.
Interesting to say the least.
What can we conclude from this?
Several other greats have similar records.
- Sampras was the higher seed in 2 of 4 lost finals: 1995 AO (Agassi), 2000 USO (Safin)
- Borg was the higher seed in 3 of 5 lost finals: 1978 USO (Connors), 1980 USO (McEnroe), 1981 W (McEnroe)
- McEnroe was the higher seed in 3 of 4 lost finals: 1982 W (Connors), 1984 RG (Lendl), 1985 USO (Lendl)
- Wilander was the higher seed in 2 of 4 lost finals: 1983 RG (Noah), 1985 AO (Edberg)
- Becker was the higher seed in 2 of 4 lost finals: 1990 W (Edberg), 1991 W (Stich)
- Edberg was the higher seed in 3 of 5 lost finals: 1989 RG (Chang), 1989 W (Becker), 1992 AO (Courier)
- Courier was the higher seed in 1 of 3 lost finals: 1993 RG (Bruguera)
- Agassi was the higher seed in 5 of 7 lost finals: 1990 RG (Gomez), 1990 USO (Sampras), 1991 RG (Courier), 1995 USO (Sampras), 2002 USO (Sampras)
Lendl's win/loss record in Slam finals, overall, does stand out -- but he's not worse than others when it comes to losing as the higher seed.