TENNIS:Andrew Spencer
THERE is, in the Swedes, the kind of chill aloofness about the way they go about the business of churning out top tennis players that reflects, in many ways, the engineered correctness of their heavy industry. The thought of flaws and setbacks being anything other than a temporary aberration simply does not exist. It is a character that engendered the icy concentration and incredible skills on both grass and clay of Bjorn Borg, produced the consummated stroke-making of Matts Wilander, and the silky serve-and-volley professionalism of Stefan Edberg. The Swedes are, in short, not to be taken lightly in tennis or any other field of endeavour where ability is welded to the cerebral function.
Into this atmosphere, the South Africans enter this weekend, at Vaxjo, north of Stockholm, and a Davis Cup quarter-final against the Swedes for an examination of national character as much as one of South African tennis-playing talent.
The South Africans have expressed their approval of the medium-fast indoor surface, one more than likely weighted, in the minds of the Swedish federation, to favour the top Swedes Thomas Enqvist, Jonas Bjorkman and Magnus Larsson, but equally suited to the playing styles of Wayne Ferreira and Grant Stafford.
Here it must be said that the singles – as always – assume the most important aspect of a tie that will line the winners up against Spain or the Italians, who beat us so convincingly in Rome last year in a meeting that most pundits would have had South Africa winning in the ante-post betting.
The home officials will have selected the surface with a keen eye on the Swedish doubles pairing of Bjorkman and Nicklas Kulti and their ability to swing what is more often than not the pivotal match against Ellis Ferreira and debutant David Adams.
One would hardly expect them not to. They are, after all, a nation that advertises safety and dependability ahead of performance in automobile advertising; a nation that is not accustomed to taking chances.
South Africans, on the other hand, rely more on go-faster stripes and mag wheels – the outer accoutrements if you will – to make the motor work at maximum revs.
It is interesting that this country’s top tennis players have come close to shaking off that in-built ideology on an individual basis and made a good deal of impact on the courts worldwide. Collectively though, the philosophy of a smart paint job has often outweighed this week-on-week training in the tough classroom of tournament play and left some lessons still to be fully absorbed.
The chief lesson learnt on the clinging clay in Rome – as was the case in the rain- dampened tie against Austria on the grass at Wanderers that led up to the trip to Italy – was that home court advantage counts for a great deal.
Matching the surface to the demands of the local players is nothing new. And the Swedes, who once ruled a goodly slice of Europe, will not be unmindful of the effects of history.
It is not a series of matches that this country’s non-playing captain Danie Visser and his squad can take as being just another outing, no matter how the pre-tie hullabaloo has tended to hype it this way.
We were treated to the same confidence before the Austrian tie. That ended up a close one after Thomas Muster won his first ever encounter on grass and then the rain forced a switch to the indoor surface at the Standard Bank Arena.
The same happened before the journey to the Foro Italico in Rome and Wayne Ferreira’s heroics with feet that bled into his socks. It was a supreme effort from this country’s number one and the personal criticism he received in the aftermath was both crass and undeserved.
What it all boils down to is that every nation is capable of its own surprises. The Swedes are no different, no matter Stafford’s sparkling current form as he shoots up the ATP rankings, or Ferreira’s career record against the best Sweden can offer in the singles.
It must be remembered that Borg, idolised as the darling of Wimbledon, was an eminently better clay court player than he was on grass, that Wilander abandoned his career to write music and poetry, and that Edberg preferred to live in London, a country that offered little in the way of tax relief over the Swedish revenue collection system.
There are all examples of the type of quirks that have to be factored into the equation when you take on a nation away from home in a town where the road and shop signs are unintelligible to the average Anglo-Saxon, the crowds are fully behind the home side and the surface has been carefully selected to give the hosts the edge.
Quite simply, there may be an aloof quality about the way the Swedes are engineered, but there is something else as well, as Wilander – a native of Vaxjo -showed, there is a poetry hidden in their souls that shows when they pick up a tennis racquet.