Kent Carlsson

Kent Carlsson (born 3 January 1968) is a former tennis player from Sweden. A seasoned claycourter, he won all nine of his ATP tour singles titles on the surface, including the 1988 Hamburg Masters. Carlsson achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 6 in September 1988.

Early life
When he was young, his family used to live all summers in Båstad. The family always parked their caravan at Hemmeslöv's campsite early in the summer and that is where Kent started to play tennis at the age of four. During his early years playing tennis Carlsson used to travel around in a caravan and ate in the tennis hall restaurant to save money.

As a result of Björn Borg's huge success at the top level, everyone in the neighborhood wanted to play tennis. They played a lot in the streets, improvising nets with bikes. However, they had to be eight years old to start the tennis school at TK Hobby, so Carlsson began playing table tennis, handball, football, and bandy. He got an exemption in the summer of 1975, and was thus able to play on the outdoor courts of the tennis school at the age of seven. Due to the huge turnout of tennis enthusiasts during the Borg era, it was almost impossible to book a court at the tennis club, so he played a lot against a plank.

At the TK Hobby club, he had coaches such as Roger Nilsson and Bosse Karlsson, in addition to his father, Lars-Göran Carlsson, who coached Kent throughout his junior years. Carlsson was critical of the media who said that his father Lars-Göran pushed him too hard and in response to the criticism, he said "it was wrong and on the contrary, he put the  on. I believed I was at my best, when I trained a lot and was never going to lose because of conditioning. I lost because my opponent was better on the day".

Playing career

Juniors
Carlsson was a successful junior winning the Kalle Anka Cup (), which is a Swedish junior tournament held in Båstad, for four years in a row, 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982, once in the under 11 category, twice in the under 13s and once in the under 15. The day before the final of the 1980 qualifying competition, held in Sörmland, he and his younger brother Thomas were cycling around the neighborhood when his brother's pedal ended up in his wheel, which resulted in a harsh fall, but he still managed to win the final the next day, despite being really bruised. He still holds the record for the most overall titles wins at 4, one more than Thomas Enqvist and Thomas Johansson who both won it 3 times.

Carlsson could have won a fifth title in Båstad if the 1983 edition had not coincided with the European Championship for U16 players. When asked about this decision, Carlsson stated: "I was only 15 years old and was going to represent my country, so the choice was not that difficult". Carlsson was a three-time European Champion between 1981 and 1983, winning the U14 tournament twice, a feat that remains unmatched, and winning the U16 event once, beating Bruno Orešar in the final. Carlsson was dominant in his age group and did not lose a single match against an opponent of the same age until right at the end of his career.

His successes at Båstad were of great importance to Carlsson since they encouraged him to pursue a tennis career despite not being "born with an athletic body". For instance, Carlsson was diagnosed with "grasshopper knee bowl" in 1983, by doctor Jan Ekstrand, who had previously worked with, among other things, the Swedish national football team. Ekstrand even stated: "I believe you can do very well down the road, but do not count on a long career. You will have to wrestle with these problems considering how you are made". However, Carlsson was "stubborn, so instead of feeling sorry for myself, I found solutions". He needed to do a lot of physical training and build up the musculature around the kneecaps. He is also critical of many of today's players who he believes are too spoilt.

Because of these issues, Carlsson felt that his only chance to reach the top level was to take some shortcuts and to take further steps a little faster. For instance, in the 1983 Orange Bowl, Carlsson competed in the 18-year-old category despite being only 15 years old and actually underage to even play the 16 category in Florida. Despite being three years younger than the best juniors in the world, Carlsson won the tournament after beating Emilio Sánchez in the final. In the following year, he won the Roland Garros Boys' Singles title in 1984 without losing a set, defeating Mark Kratzmann in the final.

Pro tour
Carlsson played his first professional match in 1983 losing to Heinz Günthardt in Geneva. 1984 was his first full year on tour and made the 3rd round of Roland Garros losing to Andrés Gómez, who defeated him as well in the 1985 and 1986 Roland Garros events. Carlsson won his first challenger title without losing a set in Neu-Ulm defeating Raúl Viver.

After losing to Mats Wilander at Barcelona of October 1984, Carlsson did not play his first tournament until April 1985 in Bari, where he lost to Emilio Sánchez. Playing a mixture of ATP events and challengers, Carlsson made his first ATP tour final in Hilversum losing to Ricki Osterthun in 5 sets after having a 2 sets to 0 lead; he won his second challenger in Messina defeating Ronald Agénor.

Starting the 1986 season in April, Carlsson won his first title on the ATP in Bari by defeating Horacio de la Peña. He made two finals in Madrid, losing to Joakim Nyström and at Bordeaux, losing to Paolo Canè. Carlsson made his one and only appearance at the US Open losing to Pavel Složil in 3 sets, after that he won his second career title in Barcelona and made his Davis Cup debut against Czechoslovakia defeating Miloslav Mečíř 6–0, 6–2, 6–4, reversing his defeat by Mečíř in the semi-finals of Hamburg.

In 1987 Carlsson retired against Mečíř at Indian Wells with a knee injury which plagued his career and restricted him to playing mostly on clay and only 13 career matches on hardcourts. He came back and won two titles, both against Emilio Sánchez in the final, at Nice and Bologna. With the title in Bologna Carlsson only dropped 10 games for the tournament, 5 of which were in the first match. That is the record for the fewest games dropped to win an International Series tournament Carlsson said that this was his best tournament of his career. In addition to the two titles, Carlsson made two finals at Boston and Indianapolis which was played on green clay losing to countryman Mats Wilander both times. Carlsson won both his singles matches for Sweden against France in the Davis Cup quarter finals at Fréjus defeating Thierry Tulasne 6–1, 3–6, 6–1, 6–2 and Henri Leconte 7–5, 6–2, 7–5. Carlsson had another surgery in August after withdrawing from the event at St. Vincent.

1988 was Carlsson's best year coming back from knee surgery in April he won his first title of the year in Madrid over Fernando Luna without losing a set. He won the German Open without losing a set defeating Henri Leconte in the final making use of his heavy topspin off both sides, especially the forehand side. He followed that up with a semi final performance at the Rome Masters losing to Ivan Lendl. Carlsson lost to Jonas Svensson in 5 sets at Roland Garros in the fourth round. Carlsson won 3 more titles after Wimbledon, at Kitzbühel defeating Emilio Sánchez, St. Vincent defeating Thierry Champion and his last career title at Barcelona defeating Thomas Muster. In Davis Cup Carlsson defeated Thierry Tulasne in a dead rubber at Båstad, he was also a finalist at Geneva losing to Marián Vajda and at Palermo losing to Mats Wilander.

After the successful 1988, Carlsson had more problems with his knees, but was able to make the final at Athens losing to Ronald Agénor and played his last professional match at Kitzbühel losing to Christian Saceanu. Then after another knee operation Carlsson announced his retirement in May 1990

After tennis
After retirement from the professional tour, Carlsson trained Magnus Norman, Thomas Johansson, Nicklas Kroon, and Aki Rahunen. After living in Monaco, Carlsson moved back to Sweden and became a horse trainer for trotting races. He developed the interest as a teenager and it was natural for him to take this as a new career and said "there is a great deal of satisfaction from training a horse from the beginning".

Career finals

Singles: 17 (9 titles – 8 runners-up)

References

External links
 
 
 

1968 births
Living people
French Open junior champions
Sportspeople from Eskilstuna
People from Monte Carlo
Swedish expatriates in Monaco
Swedish male tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in boys' singles