Every US Open championship run is memorable. After all, the courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center are professional tennis’ ultimate proving grounds. To win here, you need the whole package: intelligence, desire, stamina and courage. You need to own every shot in the book, and when that’s not enough, you need to be ready to write a new chapter or two.
But since the dawn of Open tennis in 1968, some of those championship runs have been particularly memorable and especially impressive. Some have been unexpected; some have included particularly large hurdles. Some have taken an extra degree of toughness and a double shot of tenacity.
Throughout the summer, as we make our way toward new memories at the 2021 US Open, tennis historian Steve Flink, himself enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, will be recounting some of the most notable, improbable, and particularly memorable championship runs in US Open history. In this installment, he looks at Stefan Edberg's remarkable run in 1992.
Prior to his triumphant run at the 1991 US Open, Sweden’s taciturn Stefan Edberg was never quite the right fit for the most highly charged of all Grand Slam tournaments. His personality was made for the quieter theater of Wimbledon’s Centre Court, which suited his low-key personality to the hilt. New York’s Louis Armstrong Stadium was a place for more demonstrative players who easily connected with the animated audiences, for those performers wearing their hearts on their sleeves, for champions who loved to compete in front of fans with clearly conveyed feelings.
Yet Edberg’s outlook was altered considerably when he toppled Jim Courier, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0, in the 1991 final. It was a masterpiece of a match for the Swede as he served-and-volleyed with sheer elegance, efficiency and near-perfection, leaving his American adversary befuddled in the process, performing with clear-eyed conviction. At long last, Edberg and the US Open came to terms with each other.
But it was the following year that Edberg turned the Open into an even larger and more prominent showcase for his extraordinary talent and unshakable temperament. Starting with his round of 16 clash and continuing through the end of the tournament, Edberg was thrown into one precarious corner after another. He could and probably should have been beaten by formidable rivals time and again, and yet the imperturbable Swede kept finding ways to survive and forge paths to victory.
Of the six championship runs made by Edberg across his sterling career at the four majors, none could compare with his 1992 fortnight in New York. It was a testament to his immense class and character, to his remarkable poise under pressure and, above all, to his unwavering fighting spirit. No men’s champion in the Open Era has ever overcome such a daunting set of circumstances down the stretch as did Edberg in 1992, but he handled each and every crisis with his customarily cool exterior and unmistakable inner drive.
Over the first three rounds of that 1992 US Open, Edberg was seldom under duress, taking all of his matches in straight sets. But then he found himself surrounded by difficulties so demanding that very few individuals could have emerged without permanent wounds.
The first of these rugged skirmishes was a round of 16 appointment with Richard Krajicek, a tall Dutchman with a big serve who would win Wimbledon four years later. Krajicek was just emerging at the time he collided with Edberg. He was ranked 15th in the world but he was playing top 10 tennis and refusing to allow Edberg to settle into any kind of comfort zone. Every time Edberg believed he was in control of the contest, Krajicek came at him furiously with spectacular serving, crisp volleying and enormous firepower off the ground.
And yet, Edberg somehow survived the onslaught with his trustworthy brand of percentage tennis. It was as if he was saying to Krajicek, “Keep hurling everything you have at me, but I am not going anywhere.” Krajicek took on that challenge, and then some. After Edberg took the first set, the Dutchman rallied from 4-6 down in the second set tiebreak to make it one set all. Edberg made one break count to secure the third set and then the Swede broke to establish a 3-2 lead in the fourth.
Edberg was apparently closing in on victory. He was skipping gleefully as he went to the changeover. But Krajicek swept four games in a row to move into a fifth set as he found the range on his returns and came through with some improbable passing shots. He then took the first two games of the fifth set. But Edberg held on from 15-30 in the third game and later broke back for 3-3. Nonetheless, the Swede was twice down break point at 4-4 before holding on tenaciously. He then broke Krajicek in the 10th game to complete a hard earned 6-4, 6-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 victory.
Next on Edberg’s agenda in the quarterfinals was three-time US Open champion Ivan Lendl, who had been in eight consecutive finals across the 1980s. To be sure, Lendl at 32 was past his prime, but the Open was his home away from home. The hard courts thoroughly suited his game. He respected Edberg immensely but was not intimidated by him.
Yet Edberg started off the contest in dazzling form, sweeping the first two sets comprehensively under the lights in the old Louis Armstrong Stadium. The sprightly Swedish stylist had opportunities to wrap up a win in straight sets. The score was locked at 3-3 in the third set with Lendl serving at 15-40, but the No. 9 seed held on and took that set on a run of three straight games. In the fourth set, Edberg reassembled his game convincingly to build a 4-2 lead before Lendl rallied to 4-4. Then Lendl served to stay in the match at 4-5 and trailed 0-40, but he gallantly made it back to deuce and then saved a fourth match point on his way to 5-5.
Lendl’s comeback was greeted vociferously by the fans. He broke for 6-5 and, after a 70-minute rain delay, salvaged the fourth set 7-5. Edberg led 2-1 in the fifth set on serve when rain intruded again, forcing the match to be completed the following afternoon in the sunlight. When Lendl broke for a 4-3 lead and had three game points for 5-3, he seemed almost certain to prevail. But Edberg stubbornly broke back for 4-4, and his composure and unwavering attacking play carried him into a tiebreak. From 3-3, Edberg collected four points in a row to record a 6-3, 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 7–6 victory.
Now in the penultimate round of the tournament, Edberg confronted No. 4 seed Michael Chang in the first match of a scintillating “Super Saturday” program that included Monica Seles toppling Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the women’s final and Pete Sampras closing with a four-set win over Jim Courier in the second men’s semifinal.
Edberg and Chang battled for a US Open record five hours and 26 minutes in a riveting showdown pitting the attacking Swede against the backcourt craftsmanship of his American adversary. Every set in this skirmish could have gone the other way. Edberg saved seven set points on his way to an opening set tiebreak but was soundly beaten 7-3 in that sequence. He led 4-0 and 5-2 in the second before the perspicacious Chang made it back to 5-5, but Edberg took the next two games to make it one set all. Edberg surged to a 5-2 third set lead but needed to fend off Chang in a tiebreak to fashion a two sets to one lead.
“Any time you win from a break down in the fifth set, it is a good effort. But to do it three times in a row is extremely good … I just play until the last point is played.”
Chang narrowly secured the fourth set after Edberg fought back from 3-5 to 5-5. And then Chang went ahead 3-0 in the fifth set and had Edberg in a serious bind with the Swede serving at 15-40 in the fourth game. Edberg refused to cede any more ground, and got back to 2-3, only to lose his serve once more to fall behind 4-2. Edberg seemed exhausted and despondent but somehow swept 12 points in a row to move ahead 5-4 in the final set, eventually holding from break point down to win 6-7, 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4.
And so Edberg had rescued himself in three consecutive matches from a break down in the fifth set just to earn the right to meet Sampras in the final. Sampras was searching for a second US Open title. He was seeded one place behind Edberg at No. 3, but most of the tennis cognoscenti believed he was the favorite to win over a man who had been pushed to his absolute physical and emotional limits so many times.
When Sampras handled Edberg comfortably in the first set of their final, the 21-year-old American seemed certain to win. But Edberg’s limitless supply of willpower was simply astounding. He stormed back commendably to defend his crown by defeating Sampras 3-6, 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 after Sampras served for the third set at 5-4. Edberg had made another remarkable comeback—not as astonishing as his string of five set reversals of fortune, but still an extraordinary demonstration of his propensity to compete under pressure.
There has never been a US Open championship run that even remotely resembles Edberg’s in 1992. It ranks as a singular US Open accomplishment. He did not sustain his best stuff for long, often wandered near the edge of defeat and always seemed vulnerable. But, in the end, Edberg was not found wanting.
Assessing his 1992 triumph, Edberg said, “Any time you win from a break down in the fifth set, it is a good effort. But to do it three times in a row is extremely good. I think that proves a lot that I build good character, I am fighting out there, and I not giving up. I just play until the last point is played.”
He did not simply play; he competed like the great champion he was, refused to let his guard down, inscrutably brought down some of the biggest names in the business, and came away with the most gratifying major triumph of his sparkling career.
