1991 Edberg Article from the London Times

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For a man who lives so close to the edge on court, Stefan Edberg is one of life's supreme conservatives. He abhors disorder, is disconcerted and upset by it. Edberg is the sort of man who washes up coffee cups before you have drunk the last mouthful, and he would no more leave the top off the toothpaste as he would be seen on Centre Court with his shirt outside his neatly pressed, neatly tailored shorts.

He dresses modestly, talks and drinks in moderation, still takes the underground to work,

and lines up for his meal tickets just as he did when he first came on to the tour nine years

ago. He does not own a car and would eat Italian food seven times a week if he could.

Nothing in Edberg's manner signposts the genius beneath; nothing on the surface illuminates the depths of his soul. The face, fixed in a look of almost permanent wonder,

like a child who has seen Father Christmas for the first time, melts the hearts of mothers

from Japan to Djibouti, but it discourages curiosity.

Edberg is Edberg. Too good to be true. Boring.

"The boring Swede?" He laughs."It doesn'tupset me. It makes me think ,'Can I do

anything about it? 'The answer is not a lot. My job is to play my best tennis and I do that

when I am controlled and cool. I've seen myself on television and I admit I don't

look the happiest person on earth, I know. I can start to fool around, but I don't

think it would help my tennis and, I can tell you, it used to be a lot worse."

Edberg laughs a lot more these days. Not a guffaw, you understand. Just a chuckle, delivered quickly and nervously as if there were some embarrassment in being caught in the act.

He has also mastered the art of the understatement, possibly the result of living in Britain for the past five years, or just possibly the real Edberg, more familiar with the English language now, emerging from a decade of hibernation.

It is hard to tell. Either way, his conversation is punctuated by gentle self-deprecating asides which come with the confidence of being the best in his profession, the No.1 player in the world.

That too was typical of Edberg. Boris Becker reached No.1 thunderously by beating Ivan Lendl, the defending champion, to win the Australian Open. Edberg fulfilled his ambition five months ago at the GTE Thriftway championships in Cincinnati. It was in the quarter-final and very probably only Edberg and Tony Pickard, his coach, really understood the significance of the win.

He even fluffed his second entrance. Having been briefly deposed by Becker, Edberg resumed the No.1 spot in the semi-finals of a tournament in Brussels. He lost. Hardly a clash of cymbals.

But then, unlike Becker, Edberg is not one of life's percussionists. The agonizing public

confessions that have marked Becker's growth from child to man have no part in Edberg's

thinking. Or if they do, very few know of them.

And yet Edberg has had to cope with the excesses of stardom from almost the same age as Becker. In 1983, the year he won the junior Grand Slam, Edberg beat Becker in the first round of junior Wimbledon, the first battle in what both vaguely understood would be a long war. Their paths have crossed ever since, including the finals of the last three Wimbledons.

"We are two very different people, Boris and me. It has been much tougher for him. You only have to look at how much goes around tennis in Germany. The pressures on him are unbelievable. I was lucky that I came up with 3,000 other Swedes. Borg was still huge and most of the attention was still on Mats Wilander.

But there is more to it than that. Cleverly, imperceptibly, naturally, since he first set foot outside the industrial seaside town of Vastervik, Edberg has kept the world at arm's

length. Everyone knows the face, but only Pickard, Annette Olssen, Edberg's longtime

girlfriend, and perhaps a few old school friends fully understand the man.

"I am naturally suspicious. It takes a lot of time before I let people come close. I like

to keep my distance. You meet a lot of weird people in this business, so you have to be

cautious."

Caution permeates Edberg's life, from the investment of his vast wealth to his vision of the future." I want to have a stable life. Not too many surprises. Have my things in order,

a nice house and good friends around me. Maybe a nice dinner once in a while. But I don't need a helicopter in the garden to take me there."

The one exception to this ordered existence is Edberg's tennis, which, despite his arguments to the contrary, is still beguilingly eccentric. Articulate as he is, only on the tennis court does Edberg express himself fully, and even then you have to watch carefully and wait patiently for the genius to flow. It can take a long time.

The main tension in Edberg's life comes from his lust for perfection and, because he alone among the top players knows the true meaning of the word, the search can be lonely and frustrating. When you can play tennis as faultlessly as Edberg did in the Wimbledon semi-final against Lendl last year and for the first two sets of the final, mediocrity is very hard to accept.

"I am very determined and sometimes I put too much pressure on myself, expect too much of myself. Semi-finals and finals are no good to me anymore. I have to win tournaments, and if I lose I get edgy and I have to get back to work, I've always been disciplined. It comes from childhood."

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The son of the local police chief in Vastervik, just south of Stockholm, Edberg was a gifted sportsman from early in his youth, when his sports were ice hockey and football. He took up tennis only when his mother saw an advertisement for the local club in the local club, effectively ending Edberg's normal childhood.

Edberg, though, does not regard it as a lost youth. "I spent most of my time playing tennis...16,17,18, that's a great time in your life but I missed a lot of things. I still keep in touch with a few friends from those days and they are working nine to five. I can't imagine living today in Sweden on a normal salary. But it's important that I think about that sometimes because it makes you realise how lucky you have been." Unlike Borg, he has not offended the Swedish sense of sobriety, he is still regarded with affection

by his people.

But then he is different from Borg and Wilander in the same way as an artist differs from a house painter. While Borg and Wilander were imprisoned and, in a sense, destroyed by the limitations of their canvas, Edberg roams free on his, relying on sudden moments of inspiration for victory, not on sheer mind-sapping persistence. When those moments have gone, he will retire and, he says, it is "99 per cent" he will not come back.

It would also outrage the puritan in him to retire before the time is right. There is still

business to be done, the challenge of staying at No.1, and that deep sense of justice and

commitment which drives the Swede no less than Lendl. "You have one chance in life. I'm right at the top now, but I only have a certain amount of time left- maybe two or three years- and I'd like to achieve as much as I can.

"Winning all four Grand Slams. It's in my mind. I've still got time to win the French and the US Opens. But I don't want to sit down in ten years' time and say,' Why didn't I work

harder?'"

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When he is not travelling or playing, Edberg divides his time between his flat in Kensington, in London, and his house in the south of France. He is not sure where he will live when he retires, but in his gentle way is already preparing for the moment. These days the Wimbledon champion will be more likely to be studying the progress of his

stocks and shares on the business pages than checking on the sports results.

"It's a hobby, something for me to think about when I am not playing tennis, but I am beginning to get a feel for it and I know exactly where everything is invested. That's important because tennis is a strange environment sometimes and you

have to get a grip on your life. I am taking more and more control of my life now."

Then will come wife and children. Lots of children? "Not too many. The first thing

is to start with one."

That due sense of order again.

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Andrew Longmore THE LONDON TIMES

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