Kyle Edmund is the original quiet man of tennis. His voice rarely rises above a monotone hum, disguising a determination that is manifest quickly when he unfurls one of the most powerful forehands in tennis.
He will need that sublimated energy and that withering point-gatherer to make an impression at this Australian Open, beginning on Tuesday against the Colombian world No91 Santiago Giraldo, a player he not only has never played but had never met until, quite by chance, they hit together a few days ago.
As Edmund revealed on Sunday: “I don’t know a lot about him. Before the draw came out I hit with him the day before the draw was made, funnily enough. It was good I got that hit, just to feel what it was like to play him. I read he made the second round four or five times here?”
Giraldo, in fact, has looked threatening here in the past and it took Marin Cilic to stop his progress in the second round six years ago, and Novak Djokovic the following year at the same stage. Edmund said: “He’s experienced and, when I played with him, I didn’t feel he was a typical South American clay‑court player with lots of spin and shape. His balls came through quite flat. I’ll discuss it with my coaches. If I get my game going on court I’ll feel confident.”
The Briton has been hitting the ball cleanly and with conviction before this tournament. If he can handle the power and guile of Giraldo – as he should do, ranked 45 places ahead of him – he can look to stiffer opposition in the 30th seed from Spain, Pablo Carreño Busta, then the defending champion, Djokovic, who will have his own examination to come through in the first round against the Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, who put five match points on him in Doha last week before the Serb hit a rhythm to defeat Andy Murray in a three-set final of the highest quality.
Edmund has benefited hugely from his training camps with Murray in Miami and arrived in Australia in great shape. “My pre-season was half in London and half in Miami,” he said. “We practised a lot together. There was Casper Ruud out there, Elias Ymer as well. We have different fitness trainers, so they have their own ideas of what they want to do but we do a lot of on‑court conditioning and drilling, resting, interval‑based stuff. I felt good. We’re not really competing, we’re working. It’s not a race or who can do the most reps. We’re hitting and going as hard as we can.
“The first time I did pre-season with him, I would have hoped there would be an improvement and I think after four years there has been.”
Edmund has endured cramp here before, when the heat can drain even the fittest players, but is confident he has prepared well to cope. “I hope so. We’ll find out. It’s been a year since that happened but I was OK at the French Open, played a couple of best‑of‑five Davis Cup matches and at the US Open. Hopefully, with that year on tour, the experience will help me.
“I got [cramp] when I was serving [last year], so we looked at what was impacting me on the serve. We did some sweat tests because sometimes cramp can just be a loss of fluid. I felt it way before I felt physically tired. We did some testing for that. It was a mixture of things but, even if we look at those areas, you still have to develop physically.”
