SWEDES used to reign supreme on the courts of Britain in June and July, but these days, tennis enthusiasts from the Scandinavian country should simply be thankful that Thomas Enqvist is still scurrying around the courts of the ATP Champions Tour.
Enqvist, the former World No 4 and former Australian Open runner-up, is one of the tennis greats who will arrive in Edinburgh for the Brodies Champions of Tennis tournament, even if the limelight will inevitably be stolen somewhat by heavyweight names like John McEnroe, Goran Ivanisevic and Tim Henman. In any case, the presence of Enqvist and his compatriot Mikael Penfors guarantees the tournament at least two more Swedes than will grace SW19 in a fortnight's time.
Even accounting for the continuing absence of Robin Soderling – still the only man to beat Rafael Nadal on the clay of Roland Garros – as he recovers from mononucleosis, it is a far cry from the glory days of Bjorn Borg and Stefan Edberg. "Mononucleosis was just the start of it for Robin, now unfortunately he has a thing where when he starts to do hard physical exercise, his body doesn't react well to it," said Enqvist. "It is not ready yet. That can take time, anything from one, two more weeks to five years. So no-one knows when he is going to be back. Before we used to have a lot of good players, so if one player was out due to injury you always had someone else who could fill in for him, but at this time we are in a difficult position for Swedish tennis. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone playing in this year's tournament, not even in qualifying. We are really in a slump just now."
This will be Enqvist's first visit to Scotland, one of only four countries to boast a current men's Grand Slam champion in the shape of Andy Murray. The Swede's time in the sport came before the arrival of Murray on the scene, but Enqvist is a huge admirer – even if, when pushed, he feels Novak Djokovic is likely to prevail at SW19 in the next few weeks.
"Of course Andy is a fantastic player and still improving I think," said Enqvist. "He is a great athlete, him and Djokovic are the two best movers in the game right now and he is only going to get better and better. I can see him winning more Grand Slam titles in the future. For sure he is a contender for Wimbledon. Obviously he would have had a chance at the French Open as well, but if you look only at Wimbledon it might not actually be such a bad thing that he didn't play at Roland Garros. He arrives very fresh, very optimistic.
"But for Wimbledon I would go with Djokovic. Just because you have to pick one. It is always Murray, (Rafael) Nadal, (Roger) Federer, one of those four players who will win, but if I had to pick one it would be Djokovic. But I would not be surprised if Andy wins, just like I would not be surprised if Rafa, or Federer wins. Because they have done all the work."
As for the victor in Edinburgh next week – where matches will be played on a covered hard court in the Stockbridge area of the city – it could boil down to fitness. "It is different, but still when you are on the court you want to play well and show the crowd a good match," he said. "I don't know who the favourite is. Tim Henman played very well at Albert Hall recently so maybe it is him."
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