Tennis icon Bjorn Borg has opened up on his cancer diagnosis, startling drug use and near-death collapse.
The enigmatic Swede, 69, who won 11 grand slams and five consecutive Wimbledon titles, has kept his life private until now.
He is releasing a shocking memoir titled ‘Heartbeats,’ which includes remarkable disclosures about his wild partying and ‘extremely aggressive’ prostate cancer diagnosis.
Borg underwent an operation last year and is now in remission. He refers to himself as ‘living day by day and year by year’ and confesses that he finds the diagnosis ‘psychologically challenging.’
‘I spoke to the doctor and he said this is really, really bad,’ Borg told BBC Breakfast.
‘He said you have these sleeping cancer cells [and] it’s going to be a fight in the future.
Borg plays a shot during the 1976 US Open – the legendary tennis player, now 69, has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer
Borg, pictured here in 1980 with his first wife Mariana Simionescu, has opened up about his wild years of partying in his bombshell new memoir
‘Every six months I go and test myself. I did my last test two weeks ago. It’s a thing I have to live with.’
In the memoir’s final chapter, which will be published in the UK and USA next week, Borg mentions that the cancer is ‘at its most advanced stage’ and approaches it as if he is ‘playing a Wimbledon final.’
Borg was a global superstar and the biggest name in tennis until he abruptly quit the sport in his prime aged 25.
‘All I could think about was how miserable my life had become,’ he reflects on ending his career after losing to John McEnroe in the Wimbledon and US Open finals.
Following this, his life descended into chaos. In the book, he states: ‘The first time I tried cocaine (the year after retirement in 1982), I experienced the same kind of rush that tennis used to give me.’
He also describes the moment he collapsed on a bridge in the Netherlands, going into cardiac arrest and requiring resuscitation, also in 1982.
He writes: ‘I feel the ground beneath me shifting. It’s as if I’m moving through the air; I can’t progress. We have to cross a bridge, a typical Dutch bridge over a canal with houseboats swaying.’
‘At that moment, I sink to the ground. Everything goes black, and the unimaginable happens. I’m dying. I see no bright light or a film of my life passing by; everything is simply gone.
Borg was seen at Wimbledon earlier this year where he won five grand slams in a row
Borg is pictured with Chevy Chase at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 1982
‘My heart no longer goes boom boom boom, because now it’s standing still. Yet, just before everything goes black, I think: how could it have come to this?’
The evening had begun with a lowkey dinner but soon descended into a lethal cocktail of drink and drugs.
The party was in the midst of an exhibition tournament and Borg said: ‘I ran into people I knew from outside the tennis world. One thing led to another. Drugs, alcohol, and pills were added.
‘After a very short night, I walked to the tennis park with my father. I said, “I feel so bad, I can’t play.” He replied that it would be fine. And then, bang, I collapsed.’
Borg reflects that the ‘worst shame of it all’ was waking up in the hospital bed to see his father beside him.
It was a lost decade for Borg, who also had to have his stomach pumped in 1989 when he couldn’t be woken up.
He denies that it was a suicide attempt and simply put it down to being a ‘wild night’ in Italy.
Borg is pictured in Monaco in 1983 having called time on his tennis career
‘Once I had the drugs in my sights, I was at their mercy for the rest of the evening,’ he writes. ‘I couldn’t stop myself.’
Borg managed to stop the drink and drugs with the help of his third wife, Patricia Östfeld and now has a strong relationship with his two sons.
His first son, Robin, was born to Jannike Björling, a Swedish model and Borg’s girlfriend during that lost decade.
They were unable to adequately care for him and Borg’s parents were granted custody. ‘My life was hell. Other people would have taken their own lives,’ he writes of that dark time.
By the time his second son, Leo, arrived in 2003, life was more settled. He told Swedish publication AD: ‘Leo is based here (Sweden), but he plays tennis and travels a lot. Robin turned 40 this month. He’s got his life together really well, is an ice hockey manager, and has two wonderful children. We see each other as much as possible.’
The sporting superstar was recently asked why after so many years of treasured privacy, he has decided to tell all.
He replied that it is important to him ‘to have a good beginning and a good ending’.
