Thomas Enqvist

Born: March 13, 1974 in Stockholm
Height: 1.92 m
Plays: Right-handed (two-handed backhand)

Magnus Norman once remarked that Enqvist could have been the world’s top player if he had performed in tournaments as he did during practice sessions. While the details of Enqvist’s training sessions remain unknown, one could envision him as the most dominant player had the tennis rules been significantly modified. Specifically, he might have excelled if service boxes were restricted solely to serves, eliminating net approaches and drop shots. Given his awkwardness with volleys and overheads, combined with his relatively modest speed, eliminating the need to chase drop shots, covering tight angles, and knowing opponents couldn’t attack the net would have kept him in his preferred playing style all the time.
Except on clay courts, he typically outperformed his opponents in baseline exchanges, delivering rapid, flat shots from both wings, similar to Andre Agassi. However, Enqvist, being larger and more powerful, executed this style even more impressively, particularly on hard courts (Cincinnati ’00 his biggest title) and indoor surfaces (champion of two big events: Paris ’96 and Stuttgart ’99). In their ten encounters, they split the Head-to-Head record 5-5 (Agassi better in sets though, 17-12, but Enqvist won their only final, his lone title on red clay). Agassi acknowledged: “He has a good serve and lethal groundstrokes. He is strong mentally and performs well under pressure.”
Enqvist was anticipated to continue the legacy of Swedish tennis greats Björn Borg, Mats Wilander, and Stefan Edberg. He was virtually unbeaten in Europe in the age group “14 and under” thus when he turned 15, he made his main-level debut as “wild card” in München where he lost to a Soviet player from Estonia, Andres Võsand. Enqvist achieved world No. 1 junior ranking at age 17 (two Slam titles in three finals), advanced to a Challenger final in his second appearance at this level, and the following year rocketed from No. 229 to 63 in the ATP rankings. However, his rapid ascent was interrupted by severe injuries to both knees, nearly ending his career in 1994. He rebounded strongly in 1995, claiming five titles and reaching a dramatic semifinal at the Masters, where he fell to Boris Becker.
His career pinnacle nearly arrived at the 1999 Australian Open. He displayed exceptional form in Australia in January, winning 14 straight matches (including the Kooyong exhibition event). However, in his most important final, his contemporary Yevgeny Kafelnikov, guided by coach, former no. 35, Larry Stefanki, devised an effective strategy despite 2:4 in their Head-to-Head at the time. The Russian prevailed in four sets, remarkably winning nine consecutive games against the favorite Enqvist, who had notched impressive earlier victories over Australians in back-to-back matches: Patrick Rafter (third round) and Mark Philippoussis (fourth round) – one of the Aussies was expected to win the event after their US Open ’98 final, and Pete Sampras‘ withdrawal. By the way, Sampras was Enqvist’s toughest opponent (9-2 H2H).
Notably, Enqvist had a unique approach to his serving routine, rarely bouncing the ball before either serve. Both his first and second serves were fast and flat, matching his groundstroke style. His game was characterized by an exceptionally quick pace, numerous aces and double faults, as well as abundant winners and casual errors during short rallies. With his attitude, he almost always had more ground-stroke winners than any of his opponents. Therefore not surprisingly, he never experienced a three-hour ‘best of three’ match, and only once played a match exceeding four hours – in the 1996 Davis Cup final, where he overcame Cédric Pioline in five gruelling sets, being two points away from defeat at 6:7 in the decisive set. This could have been his career highlight had Nicklas Kulti converted any of his three match points in the final rubber against Arnaud Boetsch. In 1997, when Sweden won the Davis Cup, Enqvist was a leading force in three ties prior to the final, but Swedish captain Carl-Axel Hageskog opted to keep him on the bench for the final against USA as he lost to his compatriots Jonas Björkman (Paris) and Magnus Larsson (Stockholm) in his last two ATP events of the season.
Interestingly, he was named after cross-country skier Thomas Magnusson, who earned three medals at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, including gold in the 30 km event. In spite of being one of the best hard-court players in the 1990s, Enqvist never made it to the quarterfinals of the US Open (he was defeated in the fourth round thrice, the first time in his debut).

Career record: 448-297 [ 301 events ]
Career titles: 19
Highest ranking: No. 4
Best GS results:
Australian Open (runner-up 1999; quarterfinal 1996)
Wimbledon (quarterfinal 2001)
Davis Cup champion 1997 (didn’t play in the final)