By Sebastian Cirin
Illustration by Mads Berg
Sweden has long punched above its weight in men’s tennis—a nation of 10 million having produced the likes of Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg, and Mats Wilander. Even Thomas Johansson, who peaked at No. 7, scooped up an Australian Open trophy in 2002. But the country has fallen off the tennis map of late, the mid-2000s run to world No. 4 by Robin Soderling being the only top 10 appearance by a Swede in the past decade.
With the early retirement of Soderling, Elias and Mikael Ymer have suddenly become Sweden’s best hope for a return to glory. The brothers, who are 21 and 19, respectively, hail from Skara, a small and ancient town in the western part of the country. But their story doesn’t start there.
Their father, Wondwosen Ymer, migrated from Ethiopia to Sweden at 18 to avoid being dragged into his native country’s civil war. There, he met his future wife, Kelemework, an Ethiopian medical student who had settled in Sweden when the civil war ruined her prospects of practicing medicine back home. Now two of their sons have become the biggest names in Swedish tennis.