Stefan Edberg was born on 19 January 1966 in Västervik, Sweden, and learned the game at the local club, Westerviks TK. In 1983 he won all four junior major titles, the first and only player to complete the junior Grand Slam. He turned professional the same year and worked throughout his career with the coach Tony Pickard.
His game was not built on power or pace but on precision and serve-and-volley tennis that many consider close to perfect. His first two major titles came on the grass of the Australian Open, in 1985 and 1987, and in 1987 he also won the Australian Open and US Open doubles with Anders Järryd. From 1988 to 1990 he played three consecutive Wimbledon finals against Boris Becker, his fiercest rival, and won two of them, in 1988 and 1990.
In August 1990 he became world No. 1 after winning in Cincinnati, and he held the ranking for most of the rest of that year and of 1991 and 1992, 72 weeks in all. He was named ATP Player of the Year in 1990 and 1991. His last two major titles came at the US Open, against Jim Courier in 1991 and Pete Sampras in 1992. The French Open was the one major he never won. He also won the 1989 season-ending championships and helped Sweden to four Davis Cup titles, and at the 1988 Seoul Olympics he won bronze medals in both singles and doubles.
He won six major singles titles and three major doubles titles, and 42 singles titles (Olympedia counts 41). His manners were as admired as his tennis: the ATP gave him its Sportsmanship Award five times and, in 1996, renamed it the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award. He retired that year and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. From January 2014 to December 2015 he coached Roger Federer.