On this day: Top seed suffers first-round US Open exit despite great form
Since the beginning of the US Open, the top seed had lost in the opening round only five times until 1989, never since 1971 when Jan Kodes took down John Newcombe in four sets. On August 28, 1990, Stefan Edberg wrote the negative pages of the US Open history as the last top seed who suffered the earliest exit, beaten by Alexander Volkov 6-3, 7-6, 6-2 just 15 days after becoming world no. 1 for the first time! To make things even worse for the Swede, he arrived in New York with 21 straight wins before that loss to world no. 52, conquering Wimbledon, Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Long Island in the week before the US Open. After the first-round exit at the US Open and Australian Open in 1983 when he was still 17, Stefan had never lost in the first round at Majors before suffering two defeats of that kind in 1990, bowing out at Roland Garros to Sergi Bruguera, also in straight sets.
Nonetheless, this defeat against Volkov was much more surprising, with Edberg reaching two semi-finals in New York in 1986 and 1987, standing as one of the title favorites following great results that summer. The Swede struggled to make an impression at the US Open in the last two seasons, though, failing to reach the quarters in 1988 and 1989 although never playing on such a low level as he did against Alexander. The Soviet's lefty serve proved to be too much to handle for Edberg, having the advantage from the baseline as well after passing Stefan with deep and precise shots that never gave any rhythm to world no. 1, especially in the third set.
Playing an inaugural Long Island event at the Hamlet East had brought Stefan a six-figure appearance fee but he had to pay the price for the packed schedule that summer, flying to Tokyo for an exhibition event just after Wimbledon and battling against Goran Ivanisevic only a day before the start of the US Open. A year later, Stefan would embrace almost an identical schedule but with no mistakes at the US Open this time around, ousting Ivan Lendl and Jim Courier in straight sets to lift his first trophy in New York.
"This was one of my best summers so far and I really wanted to do well at the Open, but it's too late now. I didn't feel good or comfortable and I was struggling to find my game and the way I usually play," said Edberg. "I'm not 100 percent comfortable here and I don't think I will ever be. I told myself this year I wouldn't let things bother me, that I'm going to take it one day at a time, but it's all over now. This is something I need to sit down and think about. At the moment, I can't think of any reasons why this happened. I knew that if I played the way I have in the past couple of weeks, I thought I should win this match."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/344LPQs
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