by Laura Hollom

Stefan Edberg in the Royal Box at the Centre Court in Wimbledon with Tony Pickard and Roger Federer's parents

After watching Roger Federer play on Centre court Stefan Edberg was interviewed by John Inverdale of the BBC. He started off by asking Stefan about his memories of being back at Wimbledon. He said that it brought back many happy memories of the good years at Wimbledon.

Being brought up in Sweden watching Borg win 5 titles was amazing and when he first came to Wimbledon it was the first time he'd seen a grass court .He remembers when he first arrived seeing all the open space and grass courts and feeling the atmosphere was a huge thing at the time. Reminiscing about his first match in the juniors in which he played Boris Becker in the first round, he won that match and in the main draw he then lost in the second round to Henrik Sundstrom. It was then pointed out that it was an amazing synergy that he would play Boris in the juniors and then have his amazing rivalry with him in the years that followed, with the 3 consecutive finals that they both played. He said that Boris was a tough competitor and that he had to play his very best tennis to beat him.

He was then asked about the current rivalries between the top 3 (Djokovic, Nadal and Federer) and which match-up he has enjoyed the most, to which he replied that the rivalry between Nadal and Federer has been the best battle of all time, and the way they play throughout 5 sets has been very special.

Also the match between Djokovic and Nadal at the 2012 Australian Open where they battled for nearly 6 hours makes tennis interesting and this is needed to keep people's interest in the sport and from what he has been reading in the papers it is like it is the golden age in tennis and he believes that this is true.

The issue of the state of Australian tennis and how at this year's Championships for the first time in over 70 years that they do not have a player in the third round of the men's or ladies' singles was mentioned and this was followed on about the state of Swedish tennis and the lack of top players currently and what was being done to fix this. Stefan said that a lot is being done but it is not easy and with Swedish tennis they have had decades of great players but that this sometimes comes to an end and for now it has come to an end and looking at the rankings there is only one guy within the top 300, and we will have to start again.

There are some talented kids around 15-16 years of age, it will take some time for them to come though but hopefully they will one day be at Wimbledon playing.

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