from The Challenge (Arnesen-Tennis)
by Jonas Arnesen *
translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

Today Stefan Edberg turns 50 years old. Big and hearty congratulations! But what else should I write that has not already been written or said about the sympathetic Västervik Son?

Six Grand Slam titles in singles, three in doubles, a total of 41 singles and 18 doubles titles, three Davis Cup victories, the Olympic bronze and 72 weeks as world number one.

That's a mini summary of his fabulous career that I have been privileged to follow as a journalist.

It started back in the early 1980s, when Stefan's father Bengt was kind enough to call the Barometern newspaper in Kalmar to tell his kid had played and how it had gone.

Usually it went well. Very well.

But Stefan himself was not so talkative. He hasn't been in recent years, either.

As a star in the spotlight in one of the world's largest sports, he managed to preserve his reclusive ways. Similarly, after the end of his career. When other former top players criticized - sometimes very loudly - their successors, Stefan kept quiet.

Sure, once you've sometimes wished that he would have burst in public, for example on how things have been managed in Swedish tennis over the years, but no, we will probably never get to experience the day when Stefan Edberg will go out and criticize someone.

Roger Federer is no longer working with Stefan Edberg, but still speaks with great affection of the period with the tennis legend in his team. The Swiss, who advanced to the third round of the Australian Open with a victory in straight sets over Alexandr Dolgopolov, talked about Stefan in the post-match media conference.

"Well, I have gotten used to Ivan Ljubicic now being on the team for the last month or so. It's not that different anymore like it was in the beginning. But it was always special, of course, looking up to the player box and see Stefan there. It's always been kind of surreal to have his support. So we had a very cool experience," said Federer.

For his 50th birthday, Stefan Edberg was reached on the phone by Johanna Jonsson, a contributor of the Swedish Tennis Federation website, who asked him how he spent this special day.

"I'm at home right now, but there will be no big party today. There was a little surprise after midnight here and I was celebrated by friends and acquaintances.”

The journalist also asked him to make an assessment of his life so far: "A lot has happened during these 50 years, - replied Stefan. - Looking back, I've had 50 good years in every way and above all I have experienced a lot of tennis. I have been with my wife for 30 years and feel healthy. I am absolutely satisfied and have nothing to complain about."

by Mauro Cappiello

Today, January 19th, Stefan turns 50 years old and we have prepared a very special birthday wish for him!

As our HOT SHOT!!! video section just reached its 50th issue target, we thought it would be a nice idea to collect in only one clip all those 50 great shots played by Stefan in many different matches all throughout his career.

So, this Golden Anniversary, that we hope you will recall with us sharing and retweeting this video on your favourite social channels, is also the occasion to celebrate the great work of research in our archive and on the web we have done since April 2013, when we first decided to start a section of our video gallery dedicated to the shots of magic Stefan Edberg has delighted us all with for so many years.

by Mauro Cappiello

"När vi var bäst", the book on the Golden Age of Swedish tennis published in October 2014, will be translated into Italian.

The news was given us by Ulf Roosvald, author with Mats Holm of the volume that was widely appreciated by critics and became a best seller in few months in Sweden.

The Italian version will be edited by Add Editore, an independent publishing house born in Turin in 2010.

So Italy will be the first country (and we hope not the only one) to read the work translated with the title "Game, set, match. Borg, Edberg e Wilander, la Svezia del grande tennis". It will be available in bookshops from the end of next May.

by Mauro Cappiello

A little bit later than usual, here’s our Happy New Year post, as we start our first season after the end of the partnership between Stefan Edberg and Roger Federer.

We had taken a short break from the website, like we had done several times last year, in the periods when our famous duo was away from the spotlight. These two years of Team Fedberg have been a fantastic moment of growth for our project, but also a very demanding experience for us, who were used to running a website connected to current news to a much smaller extent. Edberg was tired of traveling, we were overwhelmed by fresh information, as we were trained to look back to the past, rather than to follow the present.

We have done our best to keep you up-to-date with anything done by Edberg and Federer together and with anything said on them on the web. We have gone deep into the news, creating specials, videos, photo stories and the outcome of this effort is now an almost day-by-day diary of these two years, collecting more than 200 posts that are meant to become even more.

The owners of the Facebook page Happy Slam Tennis decided to wish their followers a very special Merry Christmas this year.

They created this video in which the elf versions of Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi and Pat Rafter play and sing "Rocking around the Christmas Tree".

In the clip, Stefan plays the contrabass along with Pete Sampras and closes the song with a vocal solo that will make you cry with laughter.

Who wouldn't love such a rock band to play for real?

Enjoy your Christmas holiday!

Now that the partnership between Stefan Edberg and Roger Federer has come to an end, it’s time to look back at the best moments of them together.

Over these two years on the Tour, they left us a lot of memories to treasure.

So, consider it our Christmas present, we will propose a poll in which you will be able to choose your favourite Fedberg moment.

Following the pagination below, you will find 5 commented options in chronological order, that we accurately selected browsing the Fedberg section of our news on STE…fans and considering the posts that you have more appreciated in terms of hits and likes on our social networks.

Once you have reached the last page, you can vote and comment your favourite one!

from BBC Sports

In a conversation with BBC Sports, Roger Federer specified how his relationship with former coach Stefan Edberg will evolve in the future. «The working relationship I had with Stefan was incredible, I loved every moment of it, - said the Swiss - but the feeling I get is he is still in the team: he still wants me to do well, he will still come and visit me on the Tour, he'll still follow my matches and he'll still give me feedback if I want, which I think is wonderful.»

Roger confirmed that the agreement with the Edberg ended for the Swede's family reasons, making clear that also his previous coaches like Annacone and Roche had a family and «it's important for them to understand that aspect as well.»

Former Wimbledon referee and supervisor Alan Mills officially retired from tennis this month, with a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall during the London stage of the ATP Champions Tour.

On that occasion, he was a special guest of The Tennis Podcast for their final release of 2015.

Presenter David Law asked him to single out a player that impressed him the most throughout his long journey in the world of tennis. Mr Mills chose Rod Laver as a player to watch and Stefan Edberg and Pat Rafter for their attitude.

In particular, he wanted to recall an episode concerning Stefan, happened 25 years ago in Miami, that once again reminds us all of how great a sportsman the Swede is.