Roger Federer hires Stefan Edberg as part of his coaching team
Stefan Edberg won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open each twice during his career. (Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images)
It's official: Six-time Grand Slam champion and former No. 1 Stefan Edberg has joined Roger Federer's coaching team.
"I am happy to announce that beginning in Melbourne, Stefan Edberg will join Severin Lüthi on my coaching team," Federer announced. "Severin, who has been part of my team for the last 7 years, will do most of the weeks and Stefan has agreed to work with us for at least 10 weeks starting at the Australian Open in Melbourne. Stefan was my childhood hero, and I am really looking forward to spending time and learning from him."
"Roger will play a full schedule next year so we both wanted to make sure we had a solid team in place," Lüthi said. "I want to continue to improve and innovate Roger's game and I really look forward to be working with Stefan. Like Roger, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Stefan and I am sure he will bring a lot to our team as Roger continues to chase titles in 2014."
Federer's decision to bring on Edberg comes a week after Novak Djokovic announced that he hired Boris Becker as his new coach. In fact, hiring former Grand Slam coaches as part of your coaching team has been quite the trend ever since Andy Murray's partnership with Ivan Lendl resulted in his Wimbledon breakthrough this year. 1989 French Open champion Michael Chang joined Kei Nishikori's team during the off-season, two-time French Open champion Sergi Brugera will work with Richard Gasquet, Marin Cilic will work with 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic and who can forget the short-lived partnership between Maria Sharapova and Jimmy Connors this summer.
Just for fun, here's how the head-to-head breaks down between the new coaches and old rivals of Djokovic, Murray and Federer.
• Lendl vs. Edberg: Edberg leads 14-13 (Murray leads Federer, 11-9).
• Edberg vs. Becker: Becker leads 25-10 (Federer leads Djokovic, 16-15).
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