NO MEAN STREETS OR STREAKS FOR THESE SWEDES

by

Richard Yallop

Mats Wilander's parents live in a standard suburban home in the southern Swedish town of Vaxjo, and they saw no need to move to the top of the road when their son recently displaced Ivan Lendl as world no. 1. Nor did they want the star treatment, with Mats buying them a mansion with his winnings. No, life goes on, with 57-year-old Einar Wilander doing his daily shift as foreman at a local air-conditioner factory, and his wife Karin devoting much time to the grandchildren. These are humble, unaffected people, living in a quiet, well-ordered estate cut into the fir and pine forests. Half a world away in the urban jungle of Manhattan is John McEnroe Senior's New York law firm.

Mr. Wilander is short and reticent, and he seems to leave most of the talking to his wife and two oldest sons, Ingmar and Anders, who are respectively five and nine years older than Mats, who is 24. He smiles in a rather embarrassed fashion when asked whether he and his wife had instilled into Mats the values that have made him admired around the world, and have helped put tennis back on an even keel after John McEnroe came aboard and hoisted the Jolly Roger in the late 1970's. "No", said Mr. Wilander, "the credit should go to his two brothers". Clearly the Wilander brothers were a good team. Whenever Ingmar and Anders went to the ice rink, or the tennis courts, they would take along their young brother. When Anders went to Bastad to play in the Swedish under-16 championships (he was ranked no.3 after Bjorn Borg), the pint-sized six-year-old Mats was pictured by Swedish television knocking tennis balls against the wall.

Now the Swedish Davis Cup team - Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Joakim Nystrom, Anders Jarryd, Kent Carlsson and, to a lesser extent (because he was schooled for so long in America), Mikael Pernfors - resemble nothing so much as an extended family of brothers. Before the Davis Cup final the team even got together for fun - and for charity, if there was any surplus at the box office - to play indoor hockey at five venues around Sweden.

Edberg, at 22, may be the "baby" of the family,* but he was brought up the same way, in Vastervik, a country town south of Stockholm, with the same simple, old-fashioned community values. Is his father not Police Inspector Bengt Edberg, a pillar of the Vastervik community? Did he not tell Stefan from a young age the importance of good behaviour? When Stefan's ability showed, and he progressed from the Vastervik team to the  district team, did the parents and coaches not stress all the time the need to behave well? Be calm and patient; that is the Swedish tennis model. The eldest of the Wilander brothers, Anders, recalls "Our parents didn't tell us what to do. They are tolerant, sympathetic people, not strict at all. But our father said, "If you're honest, you'll win in the long run"...

Wilander and Edberg may convey the impression that the Swedes are a race of angels, but they are not. The Swedish Tennis Federation says bad behaviour is not uncommon in the satellite tournaments. And of the present Davis Cup players, Anders Jarryd, a mild off-court character, has long struggled against displays of anger on court. [Percy] Rosberg, [Borg's former coach] recalled how he had first seen Jarryd's temper at an under-14 training camp. "He was the only one to show such temperament. We told him to be careful. It's best if you try to control it as a junior. Borg, Edberg, Wilander, they all concentrate on the next ball instead of getting angry"...

In Sweden they still remember with horror the night McEnroe did one of his grand turns at the Stockholm Open in November, swishing over the water container beside the court. The American had been playing Jarryd, and perhaps his exasperation that night was all the greater for his inability to understand the Swedish psyche.

Nor could McEnroe understand Wilander's continued insistence that reaching no.1 was not his main aim. The American way was to be the best, the Swedish way was to do your best. For Wilander it was more important to enjoy tennis than to be its top exponent. In January last year he married a South African model, Sonia Mulholland, and began the game afresh. His brother Anders says the first time he ever heard Mats express the desire to be no.1 was earlier this year, before he won the French. "He said it would be nice when he was old to look back and say he was number one", said Anders. "If only for one week."

([Guardian], [mid-December] 1988)

*Actually it was Kent Carlsson who was the "baby" of that team, being nearly 21 at the time, which was two years younger than Edberg, the next-youngest, who at the time was nearly 23.       - "Spider".