from Around the Rings.com

Stefan Edberg with squash player Gregory Gaultier during last year's CASE Swedish Open in Linköping

Andre Agassi, Kim Clijsters and Stefan Edberg have followed fellow tennis legend Roger Federer in backing Squash to be added to the Olympic Games programme in 2020.

"Squash is absolutely one of the best/toughest sports," said Agassi, the eight-time Grand Slam champion and Olympic gold medallist in 1996. "The Games would be proud!"

Federer was one of the first leading tennis players to pledge support for his fellow racket sport: "I think it's a wonderful sport. It's unfortunate some sports don't get the opportunity to be in the Olympics - I think squash would deserve it."

from Svd.se
by Jonas Arnesen
Translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

In the spring of 1983, the Swedish Davis Cup team began the amazing journey that brought to seven straight finals. This weekend Sweden will be fighting to regain a place in the World Group. How did we get to this point? SvD.se tennis reporter Jonas Arnesen has followed the team closely for over 30 years and sees several reasons for the decline.

We wrote from a packed Scandinavium in Gothenburg in December 1988, when Sweden played the Davis Cup final for the sixth consecutive year.

Prior to the meeting with the Germans, Sweden had lost just two of the previous 22 ties, the team had the most successful and beloved stars in all categories of Swedish sports, and they were proud to be playing for their country.

Swedish tennis flourished, during the season Mats Wilander had won the Australian Open, the French Open and had become the first Swede to triumph at the US Open, Stefan Edberg had won his first of two Wimbledon titles and with the two men from Smaland the Swedes were the clear favorites against Boris Becker & Co..

After only two days the guests won, still the main setback was yet to come.

from La Gazzetta dello Sport
by Riccardo Crivelli
translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

Nole: "If I think I've won the same Slams as Edberg and Becker I've got shivers. My target is just to win as much as possible, as long as I can"

There is the fierce Djokovic on court, the warrior with the armor of a superman physical preparation and an overwhelming mental strength. And then there's the one off court, who meets Zheng in the locker room and greets her in Chinese or stages the Gangnam-Style dance with the ball boys during practice: “It 's my way of sharing with the others the happiness to have become what I am. Not all of us are able to do it”. There are two aspects so inextricably linked to the personality of a champion who is slowly taking possession of history: four wins in Melbourne like Agassi and Federer, six Slams like Edberg and Becker.

Stefan Edberg turns 47 today!!!

We want to celebrate his birthday with this image and the message that won our competition on the social networks.

Among the many posts we received through Facebook and Twitter, Paolo Tesei sent what we thought was the most deeply felt wish and we rewarded him "engraving" it in our Facebook page cover picture that we'll also keep on our website home page these days!

A special mention for our long-time friend Albert Murdiono, who named his son after Stefan, and sent a lovely picture of him, that we are sharing with his permission.

Please, keep sending your birthday wishes to Stefan through the comments and Facebook comments all day long... and more!

Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander just after their handshake in the 1985 Australian Open final

from La Gazette du Tennis
by Stephane
translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

The Australian Open (named Australian Championships until 1969) is now the first and less "prestigious" Grand Slam tournament of the season (before the French Open at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open). This is explained by its history.

In the 1920s, the influence of American Tennis in Europe, played by the great William "Bill" Tilden, met with the arrival of our Musketeers. Indeed, the World clay court Championships (Saint-Cloud) were transferred to the Stade Roland Garros, which was originally built for Brugnon, Borotra, Cochet and Lacoste to defend the Davis Cup taken from the hands of the masters on American soil in 1926. At that time, tennis was played from spring to autumn, with the sequence Roland Garros-Wimbledon as the highlight of the season. This ending was traditionally the Davis Cup final.

What is the Australian Open? Europeans did not play in the winter (at the time they summed up tennis and other occupations): therefore it was impossible to ship for 45 days to play a simple tennis tournament.

So it was a shunned tournament, even with the advent of the Open era: finals between Australians... The best players of the 1970s, Borg, Nastase, Orantes took part only once.

At the end of this very important, wonderful year for our site, we want to give our best wishes of Merry Christmas to all our visitors, fans and followers, who help our project grow every day, with this funny video of Stefan Edberg and Annette Olsen dressed up like elves and dancing "Jingle Bells".Video made through the Elfyourself application » http://host-d.oddcast.com/elfyourself2012/home.php

Send Stefan and Annette your Christmas message through the site and Facebook comments!

from Smp.se
by Sven Elofsson
translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

Yesterday the new Södra Climate Arena was filled with tennis stars from the Swedish greatness.

Former Davis Cup players Niklas Kulti and Mikael Tillström from Good to Great academy led exercises on one of the courts, Magnus Larsson and Stefan Edberg played on another, and former national team captain Carl-Axel Hageskog strolled mostly around with a smile.

The medical technology company Bactiguard has gone in with millions to support Swedish youth tennis and was the evening's host. The company, with Billy Södervall as the "inventor", has picked five talents for its future team.

from Eurosport.fr
by Laurent Vergne
Translated into English by Mauro Cappiello
Read the original article in French

From the French version of Eurosport.com, an in-depth analysis on the persistant crisis of Swedish tennis that, with Robin Söderling's long absence, is becoming more and more evident. Twenty-five Grand Slam titles in the Open Era, no player in the top-300 now...

On the path of Björn Borg, the man who started it all, Swedish tennis has experienced a golden age in the '80s. Before a slow but irreversible decline. Whether the Davis Cup, the Grand Slam or ATP, the contrast between the golden age and the current period is striking.

from Svd.se
by Jonas Arnesen

Could Thomas Enqvist still be the hardest Swede to beat in 2012?

Who is Sweden's best tennis player now? According to the ranking, the answer is Patrik Rosenholm. But I say Thomas Enqvist, the 38-year-old Davis Cup captain who played his last ATP tournament seven years ago.

Some national success is unlikely at the 44th edition of the Stockholm Open, which begins on Monday at the Kungliga Tennishallen. On the other hand, Swedish tennis is in such a deep slump that many of the long-time retired stars would fare very well in the home competition after aboout a month of hard training.

This is of course impossible to prove, nevertheless the fact that Enqvist is a player of a higher level than Rosenholm and the 28 other Swedes who have a place on the ranking list is something that can be substantiated with hard facts.

Canadian junior Filip Peliwo is the first boy since Stefan Edberg in 1983 to play all four Junior Grand Slam finals in the same year

from The Sports Campus

Filip Peliwo etched his name in the tennis history books on Saturday following his 6-4, 6-0 victory over Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, New York.

The win gave Peliwo a berth in his fourth junior Grand Slam boys' singles final of the season where he will play Liam Broady of Great Britain on Sunday.

The 18-year-old Canadian becomes the first player since Stefan Edberg in 1983 to reach all four junior Major singles finals in the same year at the Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, and now the U.S. Open. Peliwo won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in July, making Canadian tennis history along with Eugenie Bouchard (Westmount, QC) who swept the girls' singles and doubles titles at the All-England Club.