Why Is Stefan Edberg Not Considered a Great?

Stefan Edberg, a former World number 1 Swede, has been considered one of the best serve-and-volley players. He has the rare distinction of being a Singles as well as Doubles World No. 1. He has six singles Grand Slam titles and three doubles titles.

The six singles titles were spread over two each at the Aussie Open, Wimbledon and US Open. He managed to reach the finals of the French Open once in 1989 but lost to Michael Chang in an epic five-setter.

He had later commented: "If the concept of tie breakers hadn't been found, Michael and I would still be playing!"

He won a Junior Grand Slam in 1983 and is still the only one to do so! His career which started off more with doubles victories soon came to limelight when he won the Aussie Open back to back in 1985 (def. Mats Wilander) and 1987 (def. Aussie favourite Pat Cash). The tournament was not held in 1986.

He is probably the only one to win both singles and doubles Grand Slam in the same year (I am not sure about this). He did it in 1987 in the Aussie Open but it was played on grass until then. Nevertheless, it is an amazing feat.

He won the Wimbledon in 1988, defeating Boris Becker and they shared an unparallelled rivalry till the early 1990's. The next year, Becker came back to win the title but once again in 1990 Edberg got the better of Becker in a classic five-setter.

This made him the world No. 1 at the end of 1990 and he was number one for a total of 72 weeks spread over a few years.

He went on to win two more Grand Slams in 1991 (def. Jim Courier) and 1992 (def. Pistol Pete). He lost to Courier in the Aussie Open (which had become a hard court by then) finals in 1992 and 1993.

He, clearly, was better in hard courts and grass. The fact that he had made it to the French finals shows he was not only a good player but a great one. He, somehow, doesn't seem to be spoken of in that league. Pete Sampras never won a French, too, and in fact he made it only to one semifinal.

I have always been fascinated with this guy. Whatever little I have seen of him has made me dumbstruck. So do drop in your comments and enlighten me. Forgive me for any blunders as I have not done much research in writing this article. Cheers!