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The humble boy from Yorkshire has toiled in Andy Murray’s shadow for years, but now only Marin Cilic stands between him and an improbable place in the Australian Open final.
There are few more grounded players in the turbulent world of professional tennis than Kyle Edmund. But the boy from Beverley knows the time has come to let loose his inner beast if he is to do what no one except those close to him thought was possible until the past few days: reach the final of the Australian Open on Sunday.
Standing in his way in the semi-finals is Marin Cilic, the experienced, sometimes brilliant but often brittle Croatian, who is No 6 in the world and won their only previous match, 6-3, 7-6 (5) in the second round of the Shanghai Masters last year.
They are both admired and liked in the locker room but it is Edmund who has intrigued strangers in Melbourne with his impeccable manners and humble demeanour. Those who know him best say what you see is the real Edmund, an understated Yorkshireman who arrived in the county 20 years ago with his South African mother and Welsh father, and set about sating his obvious sporting appetite.
Russell Parker, who was his tutor and head of sport at school – where cricket and swimming first caught his attention – told the Hull Daily Mail: “Kyle was, and still is, a lovely young man. He was a natural all-rounder at sport but, what really set him apart, even then, was his tenacity and will to win.”
Edmund said of the perception of him, “It’s your job. There are quite a few players, in my opinion, who act one way off the court and act another way on the court. When you are in a competitive environment, you do stuff differently. I don’t know too many players who are exactly the same on and off the court, so I think it’s just how it works.”
But he does appreciate the passion of his extrovert Swedish coach, Fredrik Rosengren, who spends most of his matches on his feet screaming his head off.
“It’s great to have someone in your corner who is really engaged like that. At the same time it has to come internally from yourself, that drive and that firepower. All the guys in my box, I believe in them. It is good to look over and see they are pumped for you, especially when you get in those close moments at the end of sets – that’s when you can feed off them and become really gritty and tough to beat.”
Fame has come gradually to Edmund, who spent years striving in the shadow of Andy Murray – a place he felt perfectly comfortable, by the way. When the former world No 1 invited him to his off-season training camp in Miami, Edmund knew it was akin to an anointment from the best player these islands have produced.
But away from even that peripheral glare, Edmund toiled in unglamorous surroundings – and lived for several years in digs at the National Training Centre in Roehampton.
“You think about that sometimes,” he says, “how far you’ve come. But you don’t awe over it, you just get on with it. From 16 to 20 I was staying at the NTC. London is an expensive place to live so until I could get my own place that was the option. That’s what you have to do growing up. Then, I guess, the perks come later. But you’ve got to earn it. It’s great for me but also for my family, who are really close to me … all the years they sacrificed to watch, to see me do well, is worth it.”
Did he ever feel homesick or lonely on tour? “No. If I didn’t like it, I would stop it straight away. No one forces me to do it. That’s the great thing about my parents: they never forced me to do anything. They were very supportive of me and my decisions. I’ve lived away from home since I was 13. Come 20, you get used to it.
“You miss home but that’s why you do these things, because you want to reach the pinnacle of your sport. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to trust the process and do the best you can.”
And the best he could do the past 10 days has landed him up in the semi-final of a grand slam against Cilic, a seasoned campaigner who has won a slam – the US Open in 2014 – and has shown flashes of his pedigree across the tour since 2010, when Murray stopped him in Melbourne at this point of the tournament.
Murray, who has slipped to No 20 in his enforced absence and whom Edmund will pass in the rankings if he reaches the final – will be watching his friend and protege again at home in Surrey, no doubt with his finger hovering over his Twitter button. There is at least a decent chance his reaction will be the same thing he tweeted when Edmund outlasted the world No 3, Grigor Dimitrov, in the quarter-finals: “Wow!”
The boy from Beverley has moved to the Bahamas, where the weather and tax are more amenable, but he surely knows his Yorkshire roots. The last player from Beverley to make a noise in the tennis world was an amateur called Dr John Gregory. In 1929, he made the long boat journey to Melbourne to compete in the Australian Open – and won it
(GUARDIAN)
