He helped Roger Federer win his first Grand Slam title: Former Swedish ATP professional and tennis coach Peter Lundgren has died at the age of just 59. The Swedish Tennis Association announced this in a post on Instagram, confirming media reports and information from Lundgren’s children Lukas and Julia on Facebook.
Lundgren was one of the Swedish tennis stars of the 1980s, when the country celebrated great success all over the world, the association paid tribute to him, with a view to an era in which the Scandinavian nation, after the successes of Björn Borg, had other world-class players such as Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg.
However, Lundgren will be remembered especially as a coach. He worked with players such as Marcelo Rios, Marat Safin and Stan Wawrinka and helped Federer, who was only 22 at the time, win his first Wimbledon title in 2003. As a player, he himself had reached number 25 in the world rankings and won three ATP tournaments in Cologne, New York and San Francisco.
Borg: «A wonderful person»
“Peter Lundgren was a wonderful person with a big heart and a lot of humor,” Swedish tennis legend Björn Borg told Sportbladet. He was also “a really good friend,” said Borg. “He was loved by everyone. He will be missed in the tennis world.”
The Aftonbladet reported that Lundgren suffered from diabetes and had to have a foot amputated last year due to an infection.
“Rest in peace, dad,” Lukas Lundgren wrote on Facebook. “Unfortunately, one of the best has left us far too soon.”
