“You’re not really thinking about it. You’re in the zone, you’re in the match. You go into a place where you’re right in it, zoned in. The crowd is the crowd, a great atmosphere. If you could take yourself out of your body and look at the environment you’re playing in, it’s a special occasion playing on that court. It’s packed and you’re in a dogfight. But there’s no nerves. You’re just playing. You’re obviously aware of the situation but it wouldn’t help to get nervous. You have to keep going and believe in yourself.”
Thus did Kyle Edmund describe his departure from the Italian Open in a tie-break against the defending champion, Alexander Zverev, that they stretched over 24 points, long, tense exchanges piling on top of each other like layers of too much chocolate cake melting in the afternoon sun. The fans, crammed on to the marble steps of Court Pietrangeli – an open‑air theatre of delights – were spent and sated. So, how could the players fail to engage?
Yet the remarkable thing about Edmund was that, half an hour later, he had “turned the mixer off”, as builders say. He could describe what he had endured but it was gone, a score in the book. He has that rare ability to look at himself from the outside. The result and performance meant no more than a lot of other trials, except it lifted him to the level of his star-spangled opponent, a long-haired, flamboyant German of Russian descent whose adrenaline levels probably were still raging deep into the night.
They have played three times now and Edmund is getting closer to beating him. In the years to come they will have many such matches, if we are lucky. Zverev – who beat Edmund in the quarter-finals of the boys’ championship at the French Open in 2012 – is 21 and No 3 in the world. He went on to take a set off Rafael Nadal in the final and, in the absence of Roger Federer, will be seeded No 2 – so they could meet again in the French Open final on Sunday fortnight. Edmund is 23 and will be seeded in the top 16 at Roland Garros, avoiding an early collision with the big beasts.
In the Race to London for the ATP Finals at the O2 in November, Zverev leads the pack, 35 points ahead of Federer. Edmund is 11th but only 100 points or so outside the cut‑off. If Zverev is a meteor, Edmund is not blinded by his trail.
Zverev, tunnel-visioned, does not often talk about his rivals but he respects and fears Edmund. “The last 18 months he’s improved his backhand a lot, his ground strokes a lot,” he said in Rome. “Every short ball that he gets, he tries to go for it – and he’s not missing much. Before, his backhand was unstable, which it isn’t now. He’s using it very well down the line. His forehand is massive, and he’s not scared to go for it. When he’s on, he’s definitely a top-10 player.”
In the absence of Andy Murray – who is agonising about when to break his 11-month injury sabbatical – Edmund is Britain’s best tennis player. The public are wondering, still, if he can follow the Scot to victory in one of the four majors. So is he.
Murray’s absence and Edmund’s rise invite the question: where will the latter eventually fit in the list of Britain’s best players of recent years? At 23 and with no titles to his name, he is some way behind Murray (indisputably first), Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski.
Murray at that age, in 2010, was No 4 in the world. That year he won two titles, reached the Australian Open final, losing to Roger Federer, lost to Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon semi-finals, beat Federer to win the Rogers Cup in Canada and went out in the third round of the US Open to Stan Wawrinka.
Henman at 23 won two titles and 48 of 72 matches, against the likes of Goran Ivanisevic and Carlos Moya. His ranking for most of 1997 was in the top 20 – where Edmund, a semi-finalist at the Australian Open, finds himself now in arguably a tougher era.
Rusedski at Edmund’s age, in 1996, had a season a little behind Henman’s a year later. He won 42 of 68 matches and one title, on carpet in Beijing – but his ranking slipped from 36 to 48 over the 12 months.
So, comparing apples and oranges, Edmund is miles behind Murray at the same stage of their careers, could end up roughly on a par with Henman and maybe a little ahead of Rusedski.
But he goes to Roland Garros with excellent form and decent history. He has already won more than $1m this season, along with 17 of 25 matches, and the French clay does not transfix him as it does some others. In three visits he has won four matches and lost only to world-class opponents in Kevin Anderson (2017), John Isner (2016) and Nick Kyrgios (on a walkover in 2015).
The slower, adagio tempo of the red dirt suits his nature and his game. He has time to think, then strike. Few players hit their forehand harder. Not many serve bigger – excluding Zverev. But the younger prodigy, while capable of more spectacular tennis, does not have Edmund’s solidity.
His calm exterior is no show. His agent, Lawrence Frankopan, says he has been a dream to handle. “He is real,” Frankopan says. “It would be crazy to try to change him. He is exactly as you see him: polite, quiet, thoughtful – and, away from the game, he’s got a great sense of humour.”
Frankopan, who numbers among his tennis clients Wawrinka, Gaël Monfils and Donna Vekic – as well as Chris Evert – says marketing Edmund has been ridiculously straightforward. He first tapped into his northern background in Beverley with Yorkshire Tea and although the player does not enjoy travelling, he then brought British Airways on board. That is the sort of brand association that covers a range of perceptions.
Edmund has an uncluttered vision of his career, picking his way through training options, adapting his game as his body and experience grow, and always aware that he needs to improve gradually rather than in a rush.
Darren Chin, a former international sprinter who has worked with Usain Bolt, has been brought in to sharpen up Edmund’s footwork and acceleration and he says he has already seen an improvement in his linear mobility. He has always been good moving side to side but has lacked that spark to hunt down some of the subtle drop shots that are the hallmark of the clay-court game.
“You have to adapt to a player’s physique,” Chin says. “We can all work on our flexibility, give ourselves a little bit more range. And that will be one of the things I’m hoping to work on with Kyle. You need that speed over five metres, to be explosive in those first two or three steps. We’re working on the reaction time as well.”
Edmund observes: “It’s interesting for me to see what training sprinters do compared to us and interesting to see what the tennis world is like for him, compared to the athletics world. The first thing he commented on was the workload of what tennis players do, in terms of playing and travelling week after week. It is something he didn’t know. You only see tennis players when they’re playing on court. All the stuff that happens around it is something you don’t see.”
And “all the stuff” is starting to come together. Edmund has been meticulous and methodical in his development. Nothing is hurried. He could have been a cricketer or a footballer but tennis is a good fit for his athleticism and natural power, which he has steadily added to with regular trips to join Murray at his winter training camp in Miami. Not many others have bothered – or been invited. Murray recognises in Edmund the same work ethic that helped change him from a runt into an imposing physical specimen.
Edmund has the sculpted look and build, at 6ft 2in, that is ideal for modern tennis. The shoulders and levers are strong, the engine reliable. It was not always so. For a worryingly long time Edmund faded in five-setters he had looked like winning. Asked if he could have beaten Zverev if their match had been the best of five, rather than three, he smiled and said: “It’s never done till it’s done. So there’s always a chance you can win but I dunno … it’s a tough question.”
With pleasing regularity, Edmund is finding the answers.
