Muster's accident in 1989.

[_maxi]

Hello.

Watching some youtube videos posted here, I read that Muster had a car accident in 1989 where the ligaments of his knee were broken, resulting in surgery and his left leg a bit shorter than the other.

Is this true? has it bothered him? I mean, could him have been even better?

It's interesting, since I had a similar accident playing soccer, and my right leg is a bit shorter than the left, and I need permanent rehabilitation in the gym.

Ps: I love Muster's style. Nadal in 2004 and 2005 played very similar, it was awesome.

Early in 1989, Muster became the first Austrian to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open and, shortly after that, the first Austrian to be ranked in the world's top 10. In March, he defeated Yannick Noah in the semifinals of the Lipton International Players Championships in Key Biscayne, Florida (now known as the Sony Ericsson Open) to set up a final match with world no. 1 Ivan Lendl. But in the hours that followed that semifinal victory, Muster was struck by a drunk driver, severing ligaments in his left knee and forcing him to default the final. He flew back to Vienna to undergo surgery. With the aid of a special chair designed to allow him to practice hitting balls while recovering from knee surgery, Muster returned to competitive tennis just six months later.[2]

 

[Monsieur_DeLarge]

Apparently thereafter he had trouble on hardcourts, not so much for individual matches as for playing several tournaments in a row, so he stuck to clay as much as possible to protect the knee. His first major final and first GS semi were both on HCs, so... who knows? Impossible to quantify, though I don't think he'd ever have been a 10-slam winner à la Nadal, if that's what you're asking.

He was expected to be out for the rest of the year, but was back winning again within six months. Not popular with his fellow pros, but even the ones who disliked him gave him a lot of respect for his recovery.

Sample contemporary news coverage here, and Google News will likely have more:
http://articles.philly.com/1989-04-...ng-ritschke-bob-brandes-austrian-photographer


Regards,
MDL

PS I think this should be in the Former Pro section.

 

[_maxi]

Oh yes, this should be in the Former Pro section. My mistake.

I've always liked the way Muster played. Now it's even better to me, to know that he did all that he did with a problem in his left knee.

 

[Mustard]

Hello.

Watching some youtube videos posted here, I read that Muster had a car accident in 1989 where the ligaments of his knee were broken, resulting in surgery and his left leg a bit shorter than the other.

Is this true? has it bothered him? I mean, could him have been even better?

Yes, it's true. He still can't fully bend his left leg, the last I heard.

 

[kishnabe]

He is badass.....winning some many tough clay cort events against the toughest clay courters of all time. If it werent for that accident....He could have ended up with 1 more AO, 2 More FO!

 

[not_federer]

Of COURSE his accident happened in Miami from a drunk driver : /

 

[reversef]

For everyone who was following tennis back then, it's a very well known story. I remember some very impressive pictures in tennis magazines. He was not even on his legs, but still he was hitting the ball. I never liked the guy, even if I liked his game, because I used to find him pretty unpleasant, but I was impressed, just like everyone else at that time. Respect.
I guess he would have won a little bit more without that accident.

 

[VGP]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uNB4tMl8P8

 

[TennisLovaLova]

Whatever people at the time said he was using to recover so well and having such a mental strenght, I really admired the guy.
A true warrior, terminator style.
How many guys did come back from such an horrible injury/accident?
It's not only about the best doctors, it's also about you, your mental strenght, your karma.
The guy was just amazing imo.

 

[mattennis]

Muster was such a character!!

I never liked his on-court defying, sometimes even abusive behavior, but I always loved his total devotion, his will power, his amazing desire to win.

He won half of his clay matches before stepping on court. His rivals knew they would have to fight in hell (countless hours) just to be able to defeat him on clay. See for example Bruguera, many times surrendering to him way before their matches were over.

He always gave his all on the court, and most important, he was sure to make you understand that he was going to fight you to death, no matter what, and that to beat him it was going to be a long long and tough day for you.

He was a great warrior and a nasty one. He feared no one.

I don't know if all his amazing fighting character was perhaps forged and shapped out of his terrible accident. It is possible, I mean, I don't remember that nasty warrior assassin Muster prior to his 1989 accident.

The way he overcome his terrible accident injuries was a thing of amazement. In 1990 he was finalist in MonteCarlo and he won Rome (both times against Chesnokov IIRC), he got back to the top-10, and was SF in RolandGarros (losing to Andres Gomez, who was playing amazingly well that French Open).

Nobody will ever know what would have been for Muster if that accident had not happened.

Muster, a tennis player you must admire.

 

[_maxi]

Can someone give me examples of "on-court defying" and "abusive behaviour"??

 

[mattennis]

Can someone give me examples of "on-court defying" and "abusive behaviour"??

About Muster or in general?

Off the top of my head I cite two examples with Muster:

Muster-Mantilla Rome'98: Muster stuck his tongue out and looked defyant at Mantilla, provoking Mantilla when Mantilla was about to serve. In a change of ends Mantilla was eating a banana, Muster went by him, snatched Mantilla's banana out of his hand and throwed the banana away (IIRC). Mantilla refused to shake hands at the end of the match.

Muster-Chang Masters-Cup'95. In a certain moment Chang was using the towel to dry the sweat from his face and arms, and Thomas asked him to dry his (Muster's) ass aswell.

There were many more episodes where players didn't like some of Muster's behavior on court.

 

[mattennis]

Here some interesting answers in an interview in 2008:

GrandChelem: Well, suppose you had to play against Federer, what would you do?
Muster: Listen, I would play him on several levels. First of all, when you watch the players against him, most have the tendency to overplay, to want to do too much and at one point, they explode. Against Federer, you need to be fast, very coherent in your intentions and keep holding on. You don’t have to play Federer, you have to play tennis. They say: “Oh, I’m going to play against the best tennis player of the world. He’s nearly unbeatable” and so, a lot of players walk on court convinced that they can not win. They get broken once and it’s game over. They surrender the match.

GrandChelem: Did it ever happen to you that you told yourself whilst looking in the eyes of your opponent: “this guy right there is afraid to play against Thomas Muster”?
Muster: Yes, that has happened. On clay, guys who said “if I concede one break and it’s a 5 set match, I’m not going to come back.” So, they started to take too many risks and they made the match easy for me. Instead of playing at 100%, they wanted to play at 120% and on the other side, I only had to play at….50% (laughs)

 

[_maxi]

About Muster or in general?

Off the top of my head I cite two examples with Muster:

Muster-Mantilla Rome'98: Muster stuck his tongue out and looked defyant at Mantilla, provoking Mantilla when Mantilla was about to serve. In a change of ends Mantilla was eating a banana, Muster went by him, snatched Mantilla's banana out of his hand and throwed the banana away (IIRC). Mantilla refused to shake hands at the end of the match.

Muster-Chang Masters-Cup'95. In a certain moment Chang was using the towel to dry the sweat from his face and arms, and Thomas asked him to dry his (Muster's) ass aswell.

There were many more episodes where players didn't like some of Muster's behavior on court.

Wow, crazy. Did he have any reasons to do that?

Full match between Muster and Kohlschreiber (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QmLjpZmL-0

 

[merlinpinpin]

Hello.

Watching some youtube videos posted here, I read that Muster had a car accident in 1989 where the ligaments of his knee were broken, resulting in surgery and his left leg a bit shorter than the other.

Is this true? has it bothered him? I mean, could him have been even better?

It's interesting, since I had a similar accident playing soccer, and my right leg is a bit shorter than the left, and I need permanent rehabilitation in the gym.

Ps: I love Muster's style. Nadal in 2004 and 2005 played very similar, it was awesome.

Hard to say what would have come about without this accident, but Muster always said that his career plan was modelled after Lendl and he was mainly a HC player in his youth (he was AO semifinalist (lost to his nemesis Lendl)and Key Biscayne (Miami) finalist (where he was to face Lendl again) when he had this awful accident).

After surgery, he couldn't stay up but spent several hours each day hitting balls strapped to a surgeon table so he could rebuild his upper-body strength. But then, his knee couldn't hold long on HC, so he focused his schedule on clay, totally owning the surface in the mid-90's.

 

[_maxi]

Seems like it's a shame. The guy could have been an Agassi perhaps. Or at least win a few mayors and not only one.

 

[merlinpinpin]

Seems like it's a shame. The guy could have been an Agassi perhaps. Or at least win a few mayors and not only one.

Probably not an Agassi, as he was much more a grinder than an explosive counter-puncher, so fast courts weren't suited to his game (although he got some good results, like when he straight-setted Sampras on indoor carpet in Essen). But he would probably had a better career withou this unfortunate accident, yes.

 

[BeHappy]

He could have been Nadal, this is the match he played right before walking out of the arena and having his leg snapped in half:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR0SvsXk7-U&feature=related

 

[chmee]

I remember him training in a wheelchair after his accident. Great dedication and fighting spirit. He would have been a contender for a bunch of majors without that drunk driver.

Despite being a pain in the ass on court, his off court apperance is quite humorous and intelligent. For example what he says on beating Fed (quoted above) seems to me to hit the nail in the head.