You have to hand it to Roger Federer. To still come up with the biggest news on a weekend where six of the world’s top-10 players, including all top of the top four, are battling it out in Abu Dhabi. Federer managed to steal everyone else’s thunder by announcing that he has hired Swedish legend Stefan Edberg as his coach.
Since Murray joined forces with Ivan Lendl two years ago, two more players in the top six have hired former ‘80s stars – Novak Djokovic and Boris Becker, Federer and Edberg – while Stanislas Wawrinka has brought in Magnus Norman, Richard Gasquet has teamed up with Sergi Bruguera and Kei Nishikori has hired Michael Chang.
A year ago, of all the top-10 players, it was only Murray who had an ex-champion in his corner. Now we’re looking at five of the best 10 players in the world following the Scot’s lead. So, why are the ‘80s back in fashion? All of the players seem to agree on the obvious, which is that they felt they needed someone who has been in their shoes, fighting for big titles and who has lived under the same pressure.
But those same players have been going through that pressure for many years, so why now and not before? Djokovic has refused to say that he was inspired by Murray’s success with Lendl, who transformed the Brit from a grand slam finalist to a champion nine months into their partnership.
Wawrinka believes that at his age – 28 – he feels this is the kind of guidance he needs whereas when he was younger, he was better off with a regular coach. It’s no secret that the men’s game has aged in the past few years and the average age of the top 10 is now roughly at 27.8, compared to 24.6 a decade ago and 23.2 20 years ago.
Could the fact that the top players of today’s game are older and more mature mean that they would only listen to a tennis legend to move forward and improve?
Nadal, who is sticking to his team of his uncle Toni and former player Francisco Roig, says some players may find the need to hire a legend as a coach in order to follow their instructions and trust their input but talking about himself, he says he is not that kind of person.
Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash believes the level of coaches out there at the moment is very poor, which is why the players have dug into the retirement reserve in search of new solutions.
I think many of the current players never considered people like Becker or Edberg because they never thought they would accept the job. Why would a retired champion leave his family and travel again on the gruelling tour?
But once someone like Lendl stepped out of the shadows, the idea became more plausible and with part-time travelling part of the deal, the players have the perfect balance by keeping their old staff as permanent help and adding a former star to join them for a number of weeks per season.
The Edberg-Lendl-Becker trifecta is a dream scenario and it will certainly add a new dimension to the rivalries between Federer, Murray and Djokovic.
Here’s hoping those partnerships last long enough for us to see something new and exciting on tour.
