I was extremely impressed with Kent Carlsson.
Perhaps the most one-dimensional tennis player I ever had the pleasure to watch many, many times often up close. He had an even more autistic game-style than Karlovic, if that's possible, but beyond Ivo's nuclear serve, he could still volley and smack around the baseline in a mildly mediocre fashion -- which is, funnily enough, enormous praise for versatility for him in this particular comparison to Kent, who just point-blank refused to do anything than spin in his serve and swat insane-topspin groundies until doomsday...
Kent had some quality lobs and seeing him hit a volley winner was a rare pleasure to be enjoyed.
1988 was a great year for him, but Jonas Svensson was able to get him in 5 sets, which was hard fought.
The two matches with Muster that year funny, especially in the final of Barcelona. He said playing Kent "was like watching a boring movie, next time I play him, I will come to the net from the start". He was a bit more offensive in Palermo, but lost that. He got a set off Wilander in the final that was tough and Kent, a bit similar to Jocke Nyström found it difficult to play against Mats and it wasn't just the match up.
The knowledge of this possibility and the recurring injuries cementing this prediction made a severe crack in his clutch-ability and his results reflected this. He tried to play only on clay for a while and a lot of other things but in the end it was as exercise in futility. Sad. He didn't reveal any of this until a long while after the damage was discovered...
One of the coolest and eccentric tennis-players ever IMO...
Did you see the documentary Tennisprinsarna? They had him on there very briefly and he was happy that he made the top 10.
Since I did the translations and updated the wikipedia page. I found it interesting that he wasn't a from a well off background, travelling around the tournaments in a caravan. It was done a few years ago the interview.
Glöden, viljan och kampen för att nå världstoppen föddes och infriades ändå eller just därför.
- Man behöver inte ha nya bollar, bo på de finaste ställena och flyga runt. I dag är många spelare alldeles för bortskämda.
- Vi bodde till exempel på skabbiga hotell i Frankrike. Vi var fyra-fem i varje kalt rum. Jag tror det är viktigt att få gå den hårda vägen.
"De spelar utan hjärna"
Vad det gäller dagens svenska tennis är Carlsson kritisk. - Det lilla jag sett är svensk tennis en stor katastrof och jag vill anklaga tränarna för det. Redan 1990 när jag la av ville de komma ifrån det vi varit bäst på i alla tider. Det verkade som om tränarna ville se tysk tennis, att slå hårdare och spela utan hjärna.
For those who don't understand the international language of Swedish.
He basically says you don't need new balls, staying at the finest hotels and always flying (well hard to go overland to USA or Australia). Too many of todays players are too spoilt.
For example, we stayed in a shabby hotel 4-5 to a cold room. I think it's important to go through the hard way.
They play without brains
Carlsson is critical in concern to Swedish tennis. The little of Swedish tennis I have seen is a big catastrophe and he blames the training. When I finished in 1990, we were the best in all aspects. Now the training seems to be like German tennis, hit the ball harder and without any brains.
