TENNIS / DAVIS CUP FINAL : Swedes Double Up to Win Title

These are heady days for Jan Apell and Jonas Bjorkman.

And, thanks to them, these are days of newfound glory for Swedish tennis.

Less than two weeks after winning the ATP World Doubles Championship in Jakarta, Indonesia, Apell and Bjorkman teamed Saturday to defeat their Russian rivals in a five-set thriller and clinch the Davis Cup for Sweden.

Their 6-7 (7-4), 6-2, 6-3, 1-6, 8-6 victory here over Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy gave Sweden an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the best-of-five final. This is Sweden’s fifth Davis Cup title, its first in seven years.

“It was a lot of fun to win in Jakarta last week, but this is really something,” said Apell, beaming beside his partner. “This is bigger, with the team and everything. After all, we play for Sweden.”

Sweden had a golden era of tennis in the 1970s and ‘80s. Bjorn Borg led a Davis Cup winner in 1975. Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg starred on the championship teams of 1984, 1985 and 1987.

Apell, 25, and Bjorkman, 22, were boys when Sweden upset the United States in the 1984 final--the event that fed their fantasies.

They became doubles partners two years ago and were invited only this year, along with 24-year-old Magnus Larsson, to join Edberg, who is now 28 and addressed as “father” on the national team.

All four players shared in the victories over Russia, none of them easy. Edberg and Larsson won five-set contests Friday from Alexander Volkov and Kafelnikov before a raucous Russian crowd in the Olympic Sports Center.

“It’s been a great memory for me,” Edberg said Saturday.

It was even sweeter for John Anders Sjogren, the retiring Swedish captain whose first Davis Cup squad lost the 1989 final to Boris Becker and West Germany. Until this year, Sjogren’s teams had come no closer.

“This is a classic Swedish team, with team spirit,” he said after his players tossed him in the air Saturday.

The left-handed Apell and right-handed Bjorkman had won the doubles in the team’s earlier Davis Cup rounds against Denmark, France and the United States.

Favored to win here, they outserved the Russians (11 aces and service winners to seven) and won more points (32-15) at the net. But the match could have gone either way.

Kafelnikov, Russia’s top player, played brilliantly, even after exhausting himself Friday and hurting his left wrist in a fall. The Swedes tried to keep the ball from him, but he scored often with sharp service returns.

Sweden held every service until the fourth set. Then the Russians broke Bjorkman twice and evened the match.

With the decisive set tied at two games apiece and 10,000 spectators roaring, Russia blew the advantage three times; Apell held service when Olhovskiy volleyed into the net and, on the next point, Bjorkman landed a smash at Kafelnikov’s feet.

That was the point, Apell said, when Russia’s momentum stopped. Each side held service until the end, when Olhovskiy double faulted to set up match point, and Kafelnikov’s easy forehand from the net went wide.

“It’s hard to play in a crowded stadium where everyone wants you to win,” Kafelnikov, 20, said afterward. “That was huge psychological pressure for us.”

Sjogren had another explanation for his team’s victory. “Apell and Bjorkman did a great job,” he said. “They were very hungry.”