Davis Cup: Robin Söderling should lead Sweden to old strength
The Swedish Davis Cup team also has a new captain: Robin Söderling , French Open finalist from 2009 and 2010, will be the team boss from the coming season.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Dec 21, 2019, 08:25 am
Whoever remembers the Swedish Davis Cup successes mainly from the 1980s and thus the quartet Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Joakim Nyström and Anders Järryd, is of course completely right on the one hand. There were three titles for these men between 1984 and 1987, after which the German team twice proved to be too strong. The most recent title, however, dates back to 1998, when Magnus Gustafsson and Magnus Norman played the Italians as single players in Milan.
Since then there has been a lull in Scandinavia, even if there have been a few successes at least at the Grand Slam level. Which was achieved primarily by one man: Robin Söderling. He was not insignificantly involved in the fact that Roger Federer won his only title in Roland Garros in 2009: Söderling initially defeated Rafael Nadal , but to stretch his arms in the final against the Swiss grand master. Söderling proved that this run was no accident a year later when he reached the final again at the Bois de Boulogne. But then Nadal had to surrender.
Söderling ends his career with tournament success
Due to an illness, Söderling, who won a total of ten titles on the ATP tour, was still denied major exploits. After all, Söderling was unbeaten in his tennis pension: in 2011 he won his very last game on the ATP tour, and that at home in Sweden in the Bastad final against David Ferrer.
Such experiences of success will probably not be granted to the still 35-year-old in the future as team boss of the Swedish Davis Cup team. The brothers Ymer, Mikael and Elias form the backbone of the team, they are not unknown to Söderling. He had worked as a coach with Elias for a year, but did not want to do the travel stress afterwards.
He sees his new job almost euphorically. "Working with the best players in a country is an honor," Söderling told tennis.de. "I didn't think about it before, but when the question came up, I immediately felt that I wanted to do it. I want Swedish tennis to be fine."