Childhood & Early Life
He was born on January 19, 1966, in Västervik, Sweden, to Bengt Edberg and his wife Barbro Edberg.
When he was a six, his mother happened to notice an advertisement published in a local newspaper regarding a mini-tennis facility. The otherwise enthusiast of soccer and ice hockey was sent to the tennis facility on the very next day by his parents.
He used to receive training once a week through a year. Although initially he was not much interested in the game and thought of quitting it, he continued with it upon insistence of parents and gradually developed a knack for tennis.
By the time he was eight, he regularly started visiting the small tennis club that consisted of an indoor court and a couple of clay courts, where he was allowed to play free of charge.
As he was quite young at that time, he mostly played with players in the club who were older than him. He took part in many summer tournaments.
In the early 1980s he met famous trainer Percy Rosberg and soon began training under him by travelling to Stockholm once every week. After school he devoted more time in training. Later Tony Pickard became his coach.
Gradually he was noticed as a junior player and in 1983 came to limelight after winning all the four Grand Slam junior titles. Thus he became the first junior player to achieve ‘Junior Grand Slam’ and till present remains the only junior player to hold such record in the history of tennis.
During a ‘US Open’ match on September 10, 1983, his errant serve accidentally caused a fatal injury to linesman Dick Wertheim who died as a result on September 15. Edberg also achieved his first career doubles title that year in Basel.
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Career
He achieved his first top-level singles titles in 1984 in Milan. The same year he won men’s singles competition and received a gold medal in the ‘Summer Olympics’ where tennis was re-introduced as an exhibition sport. Again in 1988 Olympics held at Seoul, he earned bronze medals in men’s singles as well as doubles tournament.
He and his partner Anders Järryd finished runner-up in the 1984 ‘US Open’ men’s doubles.
He was a member of the Swedish winning team for four times in the ‘Davis Cup’ tournament in 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1994.
In February 1985 he secured a win at the U.S. Indoor in Memphis and the following year ended up as runner-up with partner Järryd in the ‘French Open’ men’s doubles final. On June 9, 1986 the duo attained World No. 1 ranking as a doubles team.
In December 1985, he won his first Grand Slam singles title in the ‘Australian Open’ beating Mats Wilander in straight sets. In January 1987 he defended and retained his title by defeating Pat Cash. The same year he partnered with Järryd to win both the ‘US Open’ and ‘Australian Open’ men’s doubles titles.
He was a part of the Swedish teams who emerged as winners in 1988, 1991 and 1995 in the ‘World Team Cup’.
His first ‘Wimbledon’ singles title came in 1988 when he defeated German great Boris Becker. It was the first of the three consecutive encounters he had with the latter that witnessed probably one of the greatest rivalries in this prestigious and oldest tennis tournament.
As defending champion he lost to Boris Becker in straight sets in the 1989 ‘Wimbledon’ final but emerged as winner of 1990 ‘Wimbledon’ final defeating Becker. In 1989 he also won ‘Nabisco Masters’ singles title beating Becker.
Due to a torn stomach muscle injury, he had to retire from the 1990 ‘Australian Open’ final while competing against defending champion Ivan Lendl. However he captured the singles numero uno rank from Ivan Lendl on August 13, 1990, following his win in the Super 9 tournament in Cincinnati and retained the position for 72 weeks.
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He had a neck-to-neck contest with Michael Stich in the 1991 ‘Wimbledon’ semi-finals but was defeated.
He won two consecutive ‘US Open’ singles title, in 1991 beating Jim Courier in straight sets and then beating Pete Sampras in 1992 as defending champion.
Edberg partnered with Czech player Petr Korda and won men’s doubles final in the 1996 ‘Australian Open’ defeating Sébastien Lareau and Alex O'Brien, marking his third and final Grand Slam doubles title.
The only Grand Slam title that eluded him was the ‘French Open. Although in 1989 he had a near opportunity to win the title, he was beaten by seventeen year old American player Michael Chang, who went on to become the youngest male player to win any Grand Slam singles title.
He received the ‘ATP Sportsmanship Award’ five times in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992 and 1995 and in acknowledgement of such accomplishment of Edberg, the award was renamed as ‘Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award’ by ‘ATP’ in 1996.
Post his retirement from professional tennis, he started to play competitive squash and in no time became an elite player in Sweden.
He became a part of the ‘Black Rock Tour of Champions’ in September 2008, which included retired ‘ATP Tour’ tennis professionals and became a winner of the first tournament he participated in Paris defeating Sergi Bruguera.
He became coach of Roger Federer in January 2014. This was announced by Federer in December 2013 on his Facebook page.
