 |
© Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum |
Though his modern-era record of five Wimbledon Singles
Championships has been overtaken by Pete Sampras, Bjorn
Borg remains at the pinnacle of the all-time greats of The
Championships by virtue of two statistics: those five successive
victories between 1976 and 1980 and the fact that he also
pulled off in three consecutive years the most difficult
“double” in tennis, victory on clay at the French
Open and on grass at Wimbledon.
Becoming champion in quick succession on such alien surfaces
has been achieved before, most notably by Rod Laver in his
Grand Slam years of 1962 and 1969, but since Borg only Andre
Agassi has managed to win both Roland Garros and Wimbledon
– and in his case seven years separated the two achievements.
There was, alas, a price to be paid for Borg’s genius,
and it was a heavy one. After annexing 11 Grand Slam singles
(six French, five Wimbledon) in the space of eight years,
the enigmatic Swede quit the sport at 26, mentally drained
and physically exhausted by those extraordinary demands.
It is unlikely tennis will ever see his like again in terms
of an athlete driven by single-mindedness to such success.
In nine tilts at the Men’s Singles between the years
of 1973 and 1981, Borg won 51 matches and lost four. Between
his 1975 quarter-final defeat by the eventual champion,
Arthur Ashe, and his loss in the 1981 final to John McEnroe,
Borg won 41 consecutive singles at The Championships.
What is less well known about Borg’s grass court
prowess is that he also won Junior Wimbledon in 1972 at
the age of 16, recovering from a 5-2 deficit in the final
set to overcome Britain’s Buster Mottram.
But it was on clay that Borg had his earliest big wins,
at the Italian and French Opens of 1974 on either side of
his 18th birthday. The Roland Garros title was again captured
the following year, and a burgeoning reputation meant that
the Swede was seeded fourth for the 1976 Championships.
In an astonishing sequence Borg demolished seven opponents,
culminating with Ilie Nastase, without dropping a set. It
was only the fourth time a man had done that at Wimbledon,
and it has not been accomplished since.
It had thus been demonstrated in devastating fashion that
Borg’s finest qualities, speed about the court, heavily
topspun groundstrokes and mental strength, translated readily
from clay to grass. It was that mental strength, allied
to his sheer never-say-die quality, which subsequently rescued
him four times from looming defeat in his incredible run
of Wimbledon success.
In 1977 he trailed Mark Edmondson by two sets in the second
round before sweeping the next three, and in the semi-final
his close friend Vitas Gerulaitis was a break up in the
fifth set before succumbing to lack of belief, since he
had never beaten Borg.
In 1978 he trailed on the opening day by two sets to one
against Victor Amaya before finding his rhythm, having newly
arrived in London from triumph in Paris. Two years later
Vijay Amritraj led Borg two sets to one in the second round,
and Borg was taken to a fourth set tie-break before prevailing.
Beneath that headband worn severely low on the forehead,
the will to win was strong as ever.
It was needed in the 1980 final against McEnroe, a match
nominated by many as Wimbledon’s greatest ever. Having
lost the opening set 6-1 to an all-out McEnroe assault,
Borg took the next two 7-5, 6-3 and had two Championship
points at 5-4 in the fourth. But McEnroe averted disaster
and went on to level the match in Wimbledon’s most
memorable tie-break, which he won 18-16, saving five more
match points.
That renowned mental quality saw Borg through a testing
8-6 fifth set for his fifth straight Wimbledon title, but
12 months later it was noticeably absent when the same pair
contested the final again. The spark had gone. Borg was
on the brink of burn-out.
“Here I was, in another Wimbledon final, the biggest
thing you can play in,” he said recently. “But
I didn’t have that sparkling feeling.” McEnroe
won 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4 and Borg’s subsequent comment
says everything about him at that time: “Of all the
Wimbledon finals I played, that is the one I should have
won, yet it didn’t bother me when I lost. So I decided
it was time to go.”
Written by Ronald Atkin
BJORN BORG
Champion: 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980
Runner-up: 1981
