‘Steel behind the quietness’ that has made Kyle Edmund Britain’s new star

Kyle Edmund

Former coach says the Australian Open semi-finalist has never lacked for focus, and his close friendship with Andy Murray has helped turn a shy boy from Hull into a driven winner

First the firsts pumped with adrenaline and unconfined joy. Then the hands pointed skyward in triumph. Watching a British male tennis player celebrate a major victory like this has become a familiar sight over the past decade.

At the Australian Open on Tuesday it wasn’t Andy Murray basking in the crowd’s exaltations however, but Kyle Edmund, a big hitting but introverted 23-year-old from Hull.

Edmund’s stunning four-set victory over the No 3 seed Grigor Dimitrov didn’t just earn him a place in Friday semi-finals, where he will play last year’s Wimbledon finalist Marin Cilic – it also propelled him forcefully into the brightest of spotlights. But Martin Weston, a coach at the Lawn Tennis Association who has known Edmund since he was 10, says he always suspected this day would come.

“Kyle was fearless from a very early age,” Weston told the Guardian. “He always wanted to play aggressive tennis and to hit lots of winners. He was never deterred when he lost. It just made him train harder. By the time he was 16 I felt he had what it took to make it and so it has proved. People sometimes say he is introverted off the court, but behind the quietness there is a hell of lot of steel.”

Edmund was born in Johannesburg in 1995 but moved to Britain when he was three. According to Weston, Edmund started playing tennis at the Young Persons Institute in Hull when he was “five or six” and was quickly on the radar of the club’s senior coach, Richard Plews – although Edmund himself has said he didn’t take the sport seriously until much later.

By the time he was 13, however, Edmund’s talent had earned him a place at the National Sports Centre at Bisham Abbey, where he started to get very serious about his sport. As he admitted in an interview last year: “That meant moving away from home and you don’t want to move away from home for anything, especially at 13. That was when I started to think: ‘Right, you’re going to do this properly now.’”

When he was 15, Edmund moved to the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton where he worked with former US Open runner-up Greg Rusedski, among others, and moved steadily up the junior rankings. But insiders in the sport stress the role that Murray has played in Edmund’s development shouldn’t be underestimated either. Most top stars don’t particularly care about youngsters coming through. However, Murray invited Edmund to stay at his training base in Miami while he was still a teenager and was quickly impressed by his talent and application. Edmund, meanwhile, was given a front-row seat into what it took to become a champion.

“It’s just being around him, picking up tips, seeing what he does,” he said in an interview in 2016. “His work ethic is something that is very high and obvious to see and it shows why he’s tough to beat on court, why he’s as fit as he is and why he does so well.”

The pair have since become good friends. Edmund was one of few players who was invited to Murray’s wedding – and although he couldn’t make it due to playing commitments, he gifted him a caricature of Murray, his wife Kim and their two dogs. It was no surprise that Murray tweeted “Wow!” after Edmund’s win on Tuesday.

Off the court those who know Edmund well say he is a family boy who is very close to parents Steven and Denise and his sister, Kelly, and likes watching Liverpool in his spare time. “He is a fantastic young man, I’d certainly be proud of him if he was my son,” says Weston. “He is very down to earth, humble and modest.”

Kyle Edmund in full flight against Grigor Dimitrov. Photograph: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Many inside the sport had expected Edmund to have broken through already. After all he was a key part of Britain’s 2015 Davis Cup winning team – when just 20 – while his booming forehand has long been considered one of the best in the game. Those looking for explanations for his recent jump in performance point to a switch in coaching to the veteran Swede Frederik Rosengren and British coach Mark Hilton, who have beefed up his serve and improved his movement. There is something to that. However in a sport of inches the change in Edmund’s mental approach might be the biggest difference of all.

“We have talked a lot about this: to play to win, not to play to avoid losing, to have the heart,” says Rosengren. “You will not win every time but you have to go out there and get it because these guys will not give it to you for free. You have to believe you can do it in tough situations, serving out sets and matches. He has done that.”

And then some. Last year Edmund was known for losing close matches. But his stirring victory over Dimitrov showed he could handle the pressure of facing the very best. It made him only the sixth British man to reach a Grand Slam semi-final and he is set to rise from current ranking of No 49 into the world’s top 30 – at the very least.

However, Weston doesn’t think playing in a grand slam semi-final, or potentially meeting Roger Federer in the final, will faze Britain’s No2.

“One story that sticks in my mind is that I was in a tournament in Mexico with Kyle when he was a junior, and he was playing someone ranked significantly higher,” he says. “And I remember watching him unleash terror on this French boy, hitting forehand after forehand winner.

“And it got to match point and when Kyle hit another brilliant winner to clinch the match, I stood up clapping. But he was so focused on what he was doing he had forgotten the score. Trust me, if he gets in the zone, it doesn’t matter who is at the other end of the court – he will cause them problems. We saw that against Dimitrov. Kyle is special like that.”

Kyle Edmund factfile