On September 13, 1981, Bjorn Borg was defeated by John McEnroe in a US Open final that lacked their usual drama. This lop-sided four-setter ended not just a match but an era. As McEnroe embraced his mother on court, Borg slipped away, escorted by seven plain-clothed police officers, skipping the presentation and the press. He fled through the kitchens of Flushing Meadows, leapt into a Volvo still in his Fila gear, and headed straight for the airport. At just 25, Borg never played another Grand Slam singles match. In a sport where mystery is rare, Borg stayed one. Four decades later, the question lingers: Why retire at 25? And, at last, Borg has spoken in his own words.

Björn Borg’s new memoir, Heartbeats, begins with a gut-punch of a confession: a hospital rush in the Netherlands during the 1990s after what he calls an overdose of “alcohol, dr*gs, pills — my preferred ways of self-medication.” The Swedish tennis icon does not hold back as he lays bare the struggles that consumed him after walking away from the sport at just 25. 

In the memoir, Borg’s account pulls no punches as he recounts coca*ne use and two near-fatal overdoses that sent him to hospitals. The first, in Italy in 1989, he insists was accidental, not a suic*de attempt. But the second, in Holland, still haunts him, mostly because of one searing memory: “the worst shame of all,” he writes, was looking up from that hospital bed and seeing his father standing over him. Panic attacks and dr*g use, he admits, became his way of coping with the emptiness that followed his exit from tennis. “The first time I tried coca*ne,” Borg writes, “I got the same kind of rush I used to get from tennis.”

Borg spoke with raw clarity. “Stupid decision to be involved with this kind of thing. It really destroys you,” he continued while talking to The Associated Press. Tennis had been his life, and when he left it, he had no plan. 

“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.”

That decision to step away came after brutal loss to John McEnroe in the 1981 US Open finals. Borg admits that the end crept up on him quietly, not with rage but with a strange calm. “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. After the match, he grabbed some beers, sat in a Long Island pool where friends had planned a victory party, and felt something inside him shift. “My head was spinning,” he said, “and I knew I’m going to step away from tennis.”

The decision shocked the sport. In the late 1970s, Borg had been untouchable, a machine that mowed through Roland Garros and then switched surfaces to dominate Wimbledon with a precision never seen before. Six French Open titles. Five straight Wimbledon crowns. Thirty-three Davis Cup singles wins when Davis Cup still mattered. The numbers were staggering, and the aura even more so.

Borg was more than a champion; he was tennis cool personified. With his headband, Fila gear, and icy stare, he made tennis glamorous. What most never saw was that this “Ice Man” was not born serene. As a boy, Borg was a fireball, suspended for six months at age 12 for smashing racquets and screaming on court. He came back reformed, promising himself he would never lose control again, and that stoicism became his weapon and his brand.

But even ice cracks. Decades later, Borg admitted that part of what drove him away was the lack of privacy. There were cameramen outside hotel rooms, paparazzi who followed him everywhere. 

“I wanted privacy as an athlete,” he said in 2023. He insists that if his era had the level of security players enjoy today, he might have kept playing and kept winning. “I was happy then. If I had continued to play, I could have won some more Grand Slams,” Borg said, hinting at just how dominant he could have remained on the ATP Tour.

For Borg, the memoir is not just about confessing the lows; it’s about reclaiming control of the narrative. He writes with candor about how fame swallowed him whole, how dr*gs nearly ended him, and how he clawed his way back to stability. There is no self-pity, just an honest reckoning with choices made and consequences faced.

Borg recently also shared a revealing act he did despite warnings from his fiercest rival, John McEnroe. 

Bjorn Borg admits selling Wimbledon trophy despite John McEnroe’s warning

In a candid July interview with The Times, five-time Wimbledon champion Bjorn Borg dropped a revelation that left the tennis world stunned. “I was going to auction my trophies [in 2006], not because I needed the money but because I wanted to get rid of everything I received in tennis,” he said. “That was not the right decision. John [McEnroe] called me several times and said, ‘You can’t sell your Wimbledon trophies.’ In the end, it cost me more money to buy them back — good move.”

McEnroe’s plea was more than just a friendly nudge; it was a call to protect their shared legacy. The thought of those iconic trophies leaving Borg’s hands clearly struck a nerve with his fiercest rival-turned-friend.

At the time of the attempted sale, Borg himself admitted the emotional weight of the decision, saying, “It’s not easy to part with the trophies.” Those words revealed a rare glimpse into the mind of a man who had defined coolness on court but wrestled with letting go of the past.

Today, the world better understands the Swedish icon: a man who nearly let go of his own history, only to reclaim it in the end.