Edberg Doesn’t Always Let Racket Do Talking

Wearing a pink knit shirt, khaki-colored trousers and a killer tan courtesy of the South of France, Stefan Edberg walked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and looked like, well, gosh, a lot like the valet parking cars outside.

Just put it over there by the curb, will you, Stefan?

Let’s face it, some of Edberg’s peers would have caused a huge commotion in the same situation.

Boris Becker were outside, he probably would have caused a chain reaction of rear-end collisions. John McEnroe would be the one slamming the cars. Andre Agassi would draw crowds as he combed his hair in the rear view mirror.

This brings up a basic question: Does it matter that Stefan Edberg is so underwhelming off the court after supplying a megawatt performance on it?

Hardly. After all, is Becker really funny? And Ivan Lendl is so programmed, he could be put on a Nintendo cartridge.

Edberg may actually be underestimated. Why, he can even tell jokes . . . Scandanavian ones.

A sample:

“Why did the Norwegian take sandpaper into the desert?’

Why?

“To use it as a map.”

Uh, yeah. Next.

“Why did the Norwegian take the car door into the desert?

OK, why?

“So he could roll down the window if it got too hot.”

As Edberg paused, he had the faintest hint of a grin.

“Sick isn’t it?” he said.

As for his own personality, so low-key it’s almost off the scale, well, Edberg has heard such talk before and doesn’t give a fjord about it.

He explained how he deals with it by pointing to his right ear, then his left.

“It comes in this one and goes out this one,” Edberg said.

Actually, it’s entirely possible that what caused Edberg to win Wimbledon a second time is located somewhere between where he was pointing.

At 24, the policeman’s son from Vastervik, Sweden, enters this week’s Volvo/Los Angeles tournament zeroing in on Lendl’s No. 1 ranking as well as unhesitating acclaim as one of tennis’ greats.

Edberg has four Grand Slam victories--the 1985 and 1987 Australian Open, Wimbledon in 1988 and again 22 days ago--but Tony Pickard, his coach, believes there is more to come.

Pickard thinks we have spotted only the tip of the Edberg. “You haven’t seen the best of him yet,” Pickard said.

If the Edberg philosophy is to walk softly and carry a big racket, it has worked out just swell so far. He has won $896,781, tops on the IBM/ATP Tour money list. Tennis Buyer’s Guide estimates Edberg’s annual endorsement income at $2 million.

It may be just a matter of time until the Edberg Era begins and another soft-spoken Swede (remember Mats Wilander?) reigns atop the men’s rankings. If so, it would have been impossible if not for Edberg’s five-set victory over Becker in the Wimbledon final.

Looking back, it was your classic come-from-ahead-come-from-behind performance by Edberg. He won the first two sets, lost the next two sets, trailed Becker, 3-1, in the fifth set and still won.

Alex Olmedo, tennis director at the Beverly Hills Hotel and 1959 Wimbledon champion, said Edberg proved something to him in that match.

“You can see that he has guts,” Olmedo said. “He’s a great champion, but I think he proved that already.

“The final versus Becker, that was a great match,” Olmedo said. “(Edberg) was at the peak of his game. He has natural talent, serve and volley. He’s young enough, thin, a great player in my opinion and capable of more.”

Before Wimbledon, there was much more speculation that the winner would be either Becker, the defending champion, or Lendl, who had skipped the French Open to prepare his grass court game. Even so, Pickard was confident about Edberg’s chances, especially since Edberg was attracting so little attention.

“I was pretty convinced that he was going to be knocking on the door,” Pickard said. “Of course, the lovely thing was everybody was talking about Lendl, and they put so much hype on Lendl, which took the pressure away from Stefan.

“That’s the way the media do it and, luckily, that’s the way we enjoy it,” he said. “Neither of us are that mad, keen to go out and hunt publicity. We would rather people judge him how he plays on the court.”

From the beginning, Edberg drew favorable responses from his play. When he was 6 years old, his parents saw a newspaper ad about a tennis facility and Edberg agreed to try the sport.

Once a week for a year, Edberg played tennis, but he wasn’t sure he liked it as much as ice hockey or soccer. Then he started hitting tennis balls against a wall not far from his home and he became hooked. Edberg even took tennis balls to bed with him.

By age 8, Edberg was a regular at the small tennis club that had two clay courts and an indoor court. Because he was small, Edberg played for free, often against older players.

When Edberg was 11, he played his first big junior tournament. Not seeded, Edberg won.

Under the guidance of Percy Rosberg, who was once Bjorn Borg’s coach, Edberg developed a very un-Borglike style. Instead of staying back and hitting from the baseline, Edberg learned an aggressive game of serve and volley, a one-handed backhand and how to attack the net.

At 16, Edberg quit school and concentrated solely on tennis, a decision that caused his family’s finances to tremble. Edberg said his parents took out a loan using their house as collateral to get money so he could play tennis.

When Edberg was 17, he became the first and only player to win the junior Grand Slam, and he turned pro the next year. At 19, he won his first Australian Open and played on Sweden’s winning Davis Cup team.

Edberg was off and running and has refined his game even more until it has become an uncanny blend of power and grace.”I’m trying to be a tennis player,” he said simply. “I’m just trying to be myself. It’s the simplest way to keep it.”

It may be just coincidence, but Edberg’s two greatest comebacks have come at Wimbledon. Neither was simple.

In the 1988 semifinals, Edberg lost the first two sets to Miloslav Mecir, then came back to win. Edberg beat Becker in the rain-delayed final.

In this year’s final, Edberg’s five-set victory over Becker was regarded by some as a mini-classic.

Wimbledon may be the most traditional of tournaments and the two-time champion acts almost, well, un-Edbergian there. It seems Edberg is actually superstitious. He uses the same locker, shower, rackets and chair on the side of the court.

But Edberg does not count this as being superstitious. “It’s just being careful,” he said.

He was very careful after he injured a knee when he fell to the court playing in an exhibition tournament in Tokyo. Edberg, who left for Japan the day after winning Wimbledon, was paid a reported $300,000 for the exhibition. He withdrew after the injury and took off for France and spent 10 days with girlfriend Annette Olsen vacationing near Cannes. The house in which they stayed was 10 minutes from the beach, but no closer, Edberg said.

“Too many people on the beach,” he said.

The U.S. Open, the year’s fourth and final Grand Slam, clearly will be no day at the beach. It has also been Edberg’s most difficult Grand Slam, with two semifinal showings his best results. Edberg has lost in the fourth round the last two years, but both he and Pickard remain optimistic.

After the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA, Edberg plays two other hardcourt warmup events before the U.S. Open.

But first, he must put his sneakers firmly on the ground because he hasn’t played a tournament since Wimbledon. His first-round match Tuesday night is against Malvai Washington.

“Stefan’s up on a cloud right now,” Pickard said.

That seems like a pretty fair place to be, all right. Win Wimbledon, float on a cloud.

So if you see a tanned, blonde-haired cloud passing overhead sometime this week, give it a wave. The next sound you hear might be a Scandanavian joke.