Björn Borg opens his new memoir, Heartbeats, with a harrowing account of being rushed to a Dutch hospital in the 1990s after overdosing on “alcohol, drugs, pills – my preferred ways of self-medication.”
He closes the book with another personal revelation: a prostate cancer diagnosis.
“It’s good,” Borg, 69, said in a recent video interview with The Associated Press (AP) from his Stockholm home, “to have a good beginning and a good ending.”
In between, the 292-page memoir, set for U.S. release by Diversion Books on Sept. 23, offers candid reflections on his love life, adventures, regrets, and the 11-time Grand Slam champion’s detailed memories of key matches.
Famed for his privacy, Borg rarely shared his inner world during his playing days – or since his shock retirement in his 20s. He revisits the moment after losing the 1981 Wimbledon and U.S. Open finals to rival John McEnroe, when he finally accepted that his career at the top was over.
“All I could think was how miserable my life had become,” he writes.
He was 25 and, while he would briefly return to tennis, he never competed at another Grand Slam event.
After the 1981 U.S. Open final, a tournament he never won, Borg grabbed some beers and sat in a pool at a Long Island house, where friends had planned a party to celebrate a victory.
“I was not upset or sad when I lost the final. And that’s not me as a person. I hate to lose,” he told the AP.
“My head was spinning,” he said, “and I knew I was going to step away from tennis.”
Borg writes about his childhood and his relationships with his parents – and later, his children.
He recalls earning the nickname “Ice-Borg” for his calmness on the court, often contrasted with the more fiery John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. Borg says it did not come about “organically,” but rather through “the bitter experiences” of a 12-year-old.
“I behaved so badly on the tennis court. I was swearing, cheating, behaving the worst you can imagine,” he recalled in the video interview.
He said his hometown tennis club banned him for six months and, when he returned, “I did not open my mouth on the tennis court because I was scared to get suspended again.”
“Boiling inside? Yes,” Borg told the AP. “I had to control my feelings. ... You cannot do that in one week. It took years to figure out how I should behave on the court.”
Borg writes about panic attacks and his drug use, which he says began in 1982.
“The first time I tried cocaine,” he says in the book, “I got the same kind of rush I used to get from tennis.”
He also writes about “the worst shame of all,” which he says came when he looked up from a hospital bed in the Netherlands to see his father. Borg clarifies that an earlier overdose in 1989 in Italy was accidental, not a suicide attempt.
“Stupid decision to be involved with this kind of thing. It really destroys you,” he told the AP about drugs. “I was happy to get away from tennis, to get away from that life. But I had no plan what to do. ... I had no people behind me to guide me in the right direction.”
In all, Borg paints the picture of quite a life.
There was a water-skiing shoulder injury before the 1977 U.S. Open. Death threats during the 1981 U.S. Open. Getting paid in cash – and getting robbed at gunpoint. A woman claiming he was the father of her son. Coin-throwing by spectators in Rome that led him to never return.
This is not a typical sports autobiography. There is a reference to sending a message to Yasser Arafat, and five pages later, the phrase “Andy Warhol was someone easy to like” appears. There are also mentions of Donald Trump, Nelson Mandela, Tina Turner, and “my old friend Hugh Hefner,” among many others.
“People will be very surprised at what really happened,” Borg told the AP. “For me to come out [after] all these years, all I went through – I went through some difficult times – it’s a relief for me to do this book. I feel so much better. ... No secrets anymore.”
