There was a time when Swedish tennis players loved to come home to Sweden and play tennis.
Or… yeah, there was a time when we actually had tennis players.
Every year, a group of strong tennis players travel to Laholmspokten to play Swedish Open In tennis (or just “Båstad” as normal folks say) and get a splash between roasters because competitions are scheduled in early July every summer.
The tournament is one of the oldest in the world, and with the Stockholm Open, it is the only tournament we have had in tennis in Sweden since the important capital matches were left out of us.
Growing up in the ’80s, it was crowded with Swedish world tennis and they often came home to play in a stadium.
Between 1978 and 1987, we had Swedish finalists in nine out of ten finals, five of the finals were all Swedish, and it is worth noting that Stefan Edberg has played two finals but never won in a stadium.
Robin Soderling won the tournament in 2011, and there have been no Swedish men in the final in the past eleven years, despite the fact that the tournament in no way attracts the biggest names.
It’s not much more with Swedish tennis, even if the Ymir brothers play a few balls now and then with the big boys.
This week, the best ad in Sweden right now, Michael YmirHe doesn’t come to Bastad even though he has an invitation card.
Perfect fucking arrogance
Ymir is ranked 90th in the world, a position not enough to qualify for quality or performance, but tournament director Magnus Normann tried for the crowd, and perhaps also for Mikael Ymir, to get the Swede there with a free ticket.
But Ymir refused, and, according to Norman, they received no explanation as to why.
Ymer’s agent, Marijn Bal, was also unable to explain his client’s decision.
– He just decided not to compete, it’s his personal decision. Not sure what he would do if I was honest. I can’t comment on this more, He said this week to SVT.
“this is”.
But okay, then we might still have an explanation.
Perfect fucking arrogance.
The starting pitch for this year’s tournament is clear, Norway’s Casper Ruud, who played the French Open final a few weeks ago, is coming, as is Dane Holger Rune he faced in the quarter-finals, as well as world number eight Andrej Rubljov and former French Open champion Stan Wawrinka and winner US Open champion Dominic Thiem.
It’s Båstad’s best squad in a long time and an excellent opportunity to show off to a hungry Swedish tennis crowd.
The tennis contacts I’ve talked to say Ymir wants to be paid to come in, pay well and plus, the wild card isn’t enough to lure a player into a tournament he doesn’t really fit in.
Not worth straight
If this is true, it is unwise and there is no other, or reasonable, explanation for Båstad’s omission, that he should find himself in a new nickname.
Unbelievable Ymir.
One of the Swedes to play in the final in a stadium is Magnus Larsson, he won the Davis Cup in 1994 and 1997, won the Grand Slam Cup in Munich in 1994 and finished 10th in the world (April 1995).
Like many others, Olofstrom-born Larsson was based in Växjö, in Strandbjörkshalen where Kali Hagskog was joking around with his tennis calves, and when Larsson, Jan Gunnarsson, Niklas Kron and a few others were at home training between the major tournaments, they went and played Elitserie- tennis for host club Växjö TS.
Magnus Larsson told me that this was a way of giving back to the club that in many ways helped him reach the goal of his dreams.
I have neither received nor claimed any payments. It was my way of giving back for all the practice time and balls used during the year plus it was so much fun hanging out with the guys on the team. On a really good evening they also got an empty foam extinguisher in the back by Janne Gunnarsson. Other notable events include the Småland Cup against Vitlanda.
This is how the tennis players of the world thought it was not so bad a long time ago, we are talking about 20-25 years.
Today there is another sound in the bark.
Today, our “best”, ranked 90th in the world, can’t even drag himself to a stadium for a week in July, to the Swedish tennis classic week when the Swedish summer is at its best, when he gets a special invite because he doesn’t really fit there.
It is indecent and unworthy not only of Swedish tennis, but also of the Swedish sports movement.
