Simon Cambers 6y

Quiet confidence of Kyle Edmund leads British hopes at French Open

Tennis

Until Andy Murray came along, the chances of a British player performing well on clay lay somewhere between slim and none.

Murray's run to the French Open final in 2016 made him the first British man to do so since 1937. But the Scot will be missing at Roland Garros this coming fortnight as he continues to build towards his hoped-for return from injury, on grass in The Netherlands next month.

Aside from Murray, the cupboard has been pretty bare in British tennis, at least on the men's side. Step forward 23-year-old Kyle Edmund, whose progress over the past couple of years means that there was still a British man in Thursday's French Open draw with realistic ambitions of making a run into the second week, and perhaps beyond. Edmund has been handed a match-up with Australian wild card Alex de Minaur in his opening match.

Ranked 50th in the world at the start of 2018, Edmund reached his first grand slam semifinal at the Australian Open in January and will be seeded No. 16 in Paris, on a surface where he has a better win ratio than any other. His 22-18 career clay record just outperforms his 44-41 hard-court results.

With his monstrous forehand now backed up by an improved serve and backhand, Edmund has been racking up the wins this year, making his first ATP Tour final in Marrakech and knocking off Novak Djokovic in Madrid.

A relatively late starter by modern standards, Edmund first picked up a racket at 10 and didn't step on a clay court until he was 12. And yet, somehow, his game looks ideally suited to the dusty surface.

"I enjoy it," he told a small group of reporters in Monte Carlo this year. "It just has different aspects to it and some suit me well. I don't know why. It's just maybe the way I've played my game and been brought up, so that suits it. I haven't designed my game around clay. It's just sort of happened and I like it."

For many, Edmund's climb toward the top of the game can be traced back to Monte Carlo in April of last year, when he played Rafael Nadal in the second round.

Having been ripped apart 6-0 in the opening set, Edmund then took the attack to Nadal, winning the second with a series of thunderous forehands. The Spaniard regrouped to win the decider but the secret was out; Edmund is a threat.

"I did play well at the back end of the match," Edmund said recently. "It was my first time on that court for me and first time playing Rafa. It's one of those matches where at the end of the day I still lost but the crowd were really into it, it was a dogfight. It's one of those matches you learn from. It's been a year since then, a whole lot of things have happened (but) it was a good experience."

Always a hard worker, Edmund's training ethic caught the attention of Murray several years ago. The Scot invited him to Florida for pre-season training on more than one occasion. It was an experience that helped build character and in Murray's absence over the past year, he has stepped up.

Off the court he is down to earth and quiet, preferring to discuss his love for Liverpool Football Club over any controversial topics in the tennis world.

Edmund broke into the top 100 at the end of 2015, a year in which he helped Britain win the Davis Cup, and the top 50 in October 2016. Having stayed around that mark until the start of 2018, he has burst into the top 20 this season.

That progression has come under the tutelage of Mark Hilton and Freddie Rosengren, the Swede who coached Magnus Norman, Jonas Bjorkman and Mario Ancic, among others.

Rosengren has worked on improving his serve and backhand and has been delighted with what he has seen, but his real impact has been off the court.

"Tennis is a mental game," Rosengren said earlier this year. "I'm not here to teach him hitting forehand or backhand, whatever, he's so good at that.

"It's more to get everything together. To believe that he can use his strength in the right moment, that he picks up the right shot at the right moment, always finding the balance in your nerves, the best players handle the tension better than the lower-ranked players, it's all about here [in the mind]. We worked a lot on that, talking, talking."

With no Murray to deflect the attention, Edmund has had to cope with the bulk of British media interest. Now the rest of the world is starting to take notice, too.

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