Jan Kodes ‘supplied information about Ivan Lendl to secret police’

• Country’s leadership feared Lendl would follow Martina Navratilova to the US

Former Wimbledon champion Jan Kodes has been spotted sitting in front of the most famous spy of all: James Bond, aka Daniel Craig. But, The Mail on Sunday can reveal, Kodes was once involved in espionage himself.

Kodes, who won the men’s singles in 1973, supplied information to Communist Czechoslovakia’s secret police about Ivan Lendl amid fears that he would defect to America or Britain.

Because the country’s tennis star, Martina Navratilova, had defected to the US in 1975, the Czech leadership was terrified that Lendl would also leave, following his rise to similar prominence in the early 1980s. 

As a result, they instructed the brutal StB state security to launch ‘Operation Winner’ to keep a check on him – and, according to state archives, Kodes signed a secret contract agreeing to report any ‘undesirable happenings’.

A file from January 1982 said that alleged ‘disagreements between Kodes and Lendl’ offered an ‘opening’ to ‘use Kodes to gain certain information’ and proposed offering him regular ‘confidential’ meetings.

In the event, Lendl became an American citizen in 1992 – having won eight Grand Slam tournaments and been a losing Wimbledon finalist twice. He later became Andy Murray’s coach.

Kodes told the MoS that he recalled being ‘questioned by secret agents’ in November 1983 and ahead of his military service in 1973, but said he had no memory of any other meetings or signing a declaration. 

Information attributed to him in the files probably came from other StB agents in the Czechoslovak Tennis Federation, he said.

He added: ‘I never collaborated with StB. Our family was very anti-Communist. My father would probably have killed me if I’d done that.’