The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Playing it cool
With the calm temperament of Henman and the ferocious game of Murray, has Britain’s new tennis ace, Kyle Edmund, got what it takes to smash Wimbledon? By Simon Briggs
AT THE MIAMI OPEN in March, the new faces of tennis reminded us why they are the punchiest generation since the days when John Mcenroe and Jimmy Connors exchanged verbal volleys at the net.
On court one, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev – two of the brightest young talents – had to be pulled apart by the umpire. Meanwhile, on social media, serial provocateur Nick Kyrgios was accusing veteran Spaniard Fernando Verdasco of being ‘the saltiest dude’. (This was not intended as a compliment.)
The list of angry young men at Crandon Park that week ran to at least half a dozen. But Kyle Edmund was not among them. Ever the gentleman, the new British number one could be found in the palm-fringed player lounge, drinking tea and following events in his measured, quizzical way.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, he is a naturally law-abiding citizen. If Kyrgios and Medvedev are Mcenroe types who relish confrontation, then Edmund has more in common with Björn Borg, the sphinx-like 1970s icon who was sometimes known as ‘the Ice-borg’.
‘I’m not an aggressive person,’ Edmund tells me, as players and their entourages flow around us. ‘I have never been one to shout and break racquets. When I was younger, losses didn’t worry me that much. I just thought long term, and I could always see I was improving. In juniors, it was about going up one level, then another level. What’s weird is that now there is no new level. It’s just getting to the top of this one.’
The first half of 2018 has been a revelation for Edmund. At 23, he came into the season as a bit-part performer on the tennis scene, the softly spoken Yorkshireman who trailed in Andy Murray’s wake.
But all that changed in January. While Murray tried and failed to achieve match fitness, eventually opting for keyhole surgery on his troublesome hip, Edmund forged to the semi-finals of the Australian Open in a blizzard of aces and 100mph forehand winners. For an introverted character, he has an unexpectedly extroverted game. And with Murray vowing to play only if he can attain ‘100 per cent’ fitness, Edmund may yet be the home crowd’s best hope at this year’s Wimbledon.
His first coach, Richard Plews, says that little has changed since a blond and bashful eight-year-old showed up at a summer camp in Beverley. ‘Kyle had friends, in fact he was a popular lad, but I wouldn’t say he was outgoing. I just remember this laserbeam focus and what an absolute cannon his forehand was. From the first session, you could see he had real ball-striking ability but no technique, which is an unusual combination.’
Even now, a coach would hesitate to recommend the way Edmund leans back on contact, while whirling his arm from low to high in the manner of a hammer-thrower beginning the first revolution. From day one, though, he has kept faith in his method. ‘I’ve got a very quick arm, a strong arm – it’s just natural speed,’ he says. ‘I’ve always had a very good throw, always bowled very quickly in cricket. It’s something so raw and natural for me. We always said, “Don’t fix it if it’s not broken.”’
Edmund inherits his athletic genes from a sporty set of parents. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1995, but the family moved to the UK three years later in search of a steadier job market. His father, Steve – a chartered accountant and former boss of a renewable-energy company – is a Welshman who grew up in Zimbabwe. Mother Denise comes from Empangeni, 100 miles up the coast from Durban, and sprinted for Kwazulu Natal.
Edmund still relishes his trips back to the Eastern Cape. He has few enthusiasms away from tennis and his favourite football club, Liverpool. But the one subject that makes his eyes sparkle is motor vehicles, a passion which he indulges in the wide open spaces of the Drakensberg mountains.
‘It’s a very outdoor lifestyle over there,’ says Edmund. ‘They all drive 4x4s and have motorbikes, and we have family and friends there. The roads are just strips of tarmac. I’ve got something called a Yamaha Rhino; it’s like a mini-4x4 set up like a quad bike.’
HOBBIES ARE A RARE LUXURY for any player, so demanding is the timetable. It’s not just the stroke practice but the gym work and the physio that eat up the day. And most of the elite players have been hothoused since their early teens, which may explain why some turn out bolshie – perhaps in reaction to the everyday experiences they missed out on – while others grow up shy.
In Edmund’s case, he left school when he was 14 to train at the Win Tennis academy in Bisham, Berkshire. This might sound like an obvious move, but many others in his position
‘You hope players would keep it simple, work hard and get on with it. That’s why I’ve done better than others’
would have looked abroad, given the unfashionability of British coaching. In October 2016, he became our first fully homegrown talent to break into the ATP’S top 50 since Tim Henman, 20 years earlier (Murray trained in Spain as a teenager).
So Edmund is a rare poster boy for the Lawn Tennis Association’s programmes, but he has his own views on what actually brings success. ‘People do talk of systems,’ he says, ‘but I think it’s down to the individual and what you have around them; there’s no point in having a system if the individual is lazy. I don’t really know the answer to why there have not been more successful British players. I don’t know about people’s mentality because I can’t see that, but it’s easy for me to see if someone’s working hard or not, really busting it. You just hope that more players would keep it simple, work hard and get on with it. That’s what I think I’ve done a lot better than the other British players.’
The last chief executive to leave the LTA, Canadian import Michael Downey, identified the problem with British tennis as a lack of what he called ‘hunger in paradise’. As he added, ‘There’s so many distractions out there [for potential players], so many alternatives.’
But even when Edmund was struggling for victories as a teenager, his dedication elevated him above the crowd. ‘I remember taking him to the national finals,’ says Plews. ‘He got murdered, lost 6-0, 6-1 to Luke Bambridge [whose singles ranking topped out at number 481 in the world], but in a funny way he was the better player. You could see the intent, the men’s game developing, whereas Bambridge covered the court well but wasn’t going to have the same weapons at senior level.’
Plews’s intuition was correct, and it didn’t take long for Edmund to start overpowering his contemporaries. In January, Bambridge posted a rueful message on Twitter. ‘Regular childhood fears […]: monsters under the bed, the dark, Santa not coming. Mine: Kyle Edmund’s forehand.’
During his years at Bisham, Edmund showed a rare ability to look ahead to the ultimate goal, while others were becoming lost in the daily ups and downs of junior competition. Fortunately, there was a role model on the horizon for him to chase. More fortunately still, Andy Murray would prove to be a generous ally.
In 2012, the year Edmund turned professional, Murray invited the 17-year-old to Miami for a pre-season training block, even providing a bed in his own luxury condo overlooking Biscayne Bay. For a fortnight, the two of them traded strokes on the practice court and sessions on the Versaclimber, a torturous training device that simulates a never-ending ladder. It would be the first of three off-season visits, and Murray remains equally supportive even now, when the student has overtaken his master on the rankings chart.
‘Andy is always available to give you advice,’ says Edmund. ‘A few times, I’ve sat down with him and said, “This is what I’ve experienced as I’m coming up on the senior tour.” Sometimes it’s about scheduling, sometimes it’s fitness and sometimes it’s tactical – like, “What would you do if you were playing a leftie? Or someone who doesn’t give you many errors?”’
Despite the strong relationship between Britain’s two finest male players, there are few similarities. Murray is the Glasgow Grinch, wild-haired and wild-eyed, baring his teeth with equal
ferocity in victory or defeat. Whereas Edmund – with his crew cut and slightly uncomfortable fist pump – is closer to Henman and the classic British stiff upper lip. Even his nickname, Kedders, is understated.
But Edmund also has a strength that Henman never enjoyed: the ability to rip opponents limb from limb with his sheer power. The three-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic is one of five top-20 players Edmund has dismantled this season. When he plays in a big event like the US Open, he performs a nightly transformation under the floodlights, like some racquet-wielding Incredible Hulk.
One of the hardest things Edmund has had to do is face Murray – not just his mentor but his childhood hero too – at an official tournament. ‘It was a really cool feeling when Andy asked me to come and practise with him,’ Edmund recalls. ‘And then you develop a relationship with him. But twice now I’ve been on court when I’ve had to beat him, so you’ve actually got to be aggressive on court and go out there and win. Initially it didn’t come easily to me. You always want your tennis idols to win, but not when you’re playing them – so that was something I just had to learn.’ (Murray won both meetings but was pushed to a deciding set in 2016 on the grass of the Queen’s Club in west London.)
Such qualms might not trouble a more showy character – Kyrgios, for example. The swaggering Australian, who was born three months after Edmund, won instant fame when he beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon at the precocious age of 19. Yet while Kyrgios might be more of a meteor, he has none of Edmund’s patient application, and at the time of writing, he was struggling with chronic injuries. Their story is developing echoes of the tortoise and the hare.
EDMUND’S LIFESTYLE LEAVES little room for spontaneity. His current home and training base is in the Bahamas, though he, like many top pros, will spend about 40 weeks a year on the road. Does he ever go out and get smashed? ‘No, I’ve had literally a couple of drinks in my life. I don’t really like the taste, I don’t get anything from it and because my career is so short I just think, “Why?”’ As for girlfriends, he once joked that he stays away from them because ‘I have been told they are trouble’. So is there a streak of Spockishness to this infallibly logical character?
The charge has some merit. Throughout his career, Edmund has been encouraged to loosen up by coaches and psychologists alike. But you change him at your peril, for it is his knack for dispassionate self-analysis that carried him here in the first place.
‘I’ve always done a reasonably good job at seeing stuff rationally,’ says Edmund. ‘But at the same time, looking at stuff rationally all the time is not good. That’s why everyone has an emotional side, because it’s there to be used. I think about these sorts of things all the time because I’m involved in a very competitive environment, and the mental side of the game is very important.
‘People might say, “Are you good enough to get to the top?” But you’re the one that has to do it. I know my game is capable of really good things. I’ve shown that in the past, and I’m at a career-high now [number 26 in the world at the time of our conversation, although that figure has since risen to number 18]. The next ambition is to go and get top 10.’
The Fever-tree Championships start on Monday at the Queen’s Club, London ( fevertreechampionships.com)
When he plays in a big event like the US Open, he performs a nightly transformation under the floodlights, like some racquet-wielding Incredible Hulk