by Mauro Cappiello

The first one who asked Stefan Edberg about coaching Roger Federer.... was not Roger Federer!

Mary Patrux is a sports journalist and big tennis lover. Back in 2009, she worked for L'Équipe when she had the chance to interview Stefan for the morning show L'Équipe du Matin. It happened in September, just the day after Stefan's defeat against Michael Chang at the Lagardère Trophy in Paris, in a re-match of their 1989 French Open final.

The interview was wide-ranging, but it was when it shifted from the old days to actuality that Mary started wondering about who could be the best volleyer in today's game. Stefan replied that Federer would have the potential to apply an attacking style of play, but he would have to change his strategy a little to make rallies shorter. So the journalist candidly suggested the Swede to train Roger at the net... Quite surprisingly, already then he didn't deny he could be interested. Surely he didn't imagine that that conversation would become reality about four years later!

As we learned from the Internet, Mary Patrux, who also had a long experience at Eurosport and now works for Be in Sports, is a huge Roger Federer supporter. Her big dream would be to interview him and we hope she will fulfil it soon and she can keep on giving us such anticipations! :-)

You can watch the entire interview here.