PARIS -- Although Mats Wilander still is only 22, it seems he has been around for ages.
But while Wilander is a familiar sight on the tennis tour, he feels he is presenting a fresh look, one that has helped to lift him to the No. 4 spot in the world rankings.
The new Wilander, who serves hard and sometimes attacks at the net, has won his last 16 matches and is the favorite to defeat second seed Boris Becker of West Germany in Friday's semifinals of the French Open tennis championships. Ivan Lendl plays Miloslav Mecir in the other semifinal.
Wilander is a different player from the stodgy, baseline machine who returned balls relentlessly to win the 1982 and 1985 French Opens, or even the player who won the 1983 and 1984 Australian Opens on grass courts.
'I think the shot I improved the most was my serve,' said Wilander, seeded fourth at Roland Garros. 'That's important because sometimes it lets you get some cheap points and it gets you hitting the ball harder from the start.'
Wilander said that even in the five years since he made his name by winning the 1982 French Open at 17, the game has changed with younger, stronger players hitting the ball harder than ever before.
The change forced Wilander to adapt, a process that took most of the last two years and was marked by disappointing results. He learned to serve and to volley, and to leave the security of the baseline to escape being overpowered.
'It's not enough anymore just to play and never miss because there are so many good players now,' Wilander said. 'Becker, whose groundstrokes are not supposed to be so good, has a good backhand and forehand and he can play long rallies. The level of play now is a lot higher than it was five years ago.'
Changes were not restricted to his tennis. Wilander, claiming burn-out, took two breaks of about two months each from the game recently to assess the future of his tennis and his personal life. He married South African model Sonja Mulholland in January and came back to tennis refreshed.
He won a tournament in Brussels in March -- the 22nd Grand Prix victory of his career -- but then suffered two consecutive embarrassingly easy defeats to Mecir, a possible opponent in the French Open final.
But when he returned to his best surface, clay, at the Monte Carlo Open in April, the new Wilander finally surfaced in full. He beat Jimmy Arias of the United States in the final, then went on to beat Martin Jaite of Argentina in the Italian Open final in Rome.
Through the first five matches at Roland Garros, he has looked better than ever before, particularly in thrashing local favorite Yannick Noah in straight sets in the quarterfinals.
'I used to play just to prove I was as good as the best players in the world,' Wilander said. 'It was work, a job. Now playing is a pleasure.'
What hasn't changed is his blasee attitude toward the world rankings, which once was widely interpreted as a lack of ambition. He got as high as second in April, 1986, but even then was not a serious threat to Lendl.
Wilander now admits he 'may want to be number one,' but won't lose any sleep if he's not.
'It's better to be the best player than to be number one in the rankings,' he said Thursday. 'Ivan Lendl was number one (in 1984) and he hadn't won a Grand Slam tournament, so it doesn't mean that much. It's better to be considered the best player in the world.'
Wilander has been just that through the spring clay court season, but he admits the true test will come after the French Open when grass court training begins for Wimbledon.
