Back to the thread :
Borg was admittedly burned out after the 1981 USO but it doesn’t seem as if at first he thought it was more than an just an extended sabbatical.
People forget Borg was winning DC matches at the insane age of 15/16 and was playing on the tour soon afterward. Beat Arthur Ashe at the USO grass by age 17, and won the French by age 18, and won 5 straight Wimbledons by age 24.. He had like 11 years on the tour by age 25.
What happened was he decided he wouldn’t return to a full schedule. Borg wanted to play Monte Carlo and the tennis powers insisted that if he didn’t commit to their mandatory x number of tournaments entered he would have to play the friggin qualifying rounds of the tournaments.
Borg said “screw that” and THEN the sabbatical became permanent.
There are a lot of ironies in the Borg/McEnroe saga. Not the least was Mac bemoaning Borg retiring early at age 25 and depriving them of future matches/motivation, and yet Mac himself never won a Major past the age of 25.
Both players were dogged for years of rumors of drug/coke usage, to which Mac subsequently admitted to.
Borg did invest in a struggling clothing line named after himself that ate millions of $$$; don’t know if he did spend a lot on drugs/Coke, but you can certainly lose your shirt on bad business deals.
Ask Dan Marino and Curt Schilling among others.
Thanks! People need to know this is why
Borg retired early! Besides being just plain burned out after so many years of winning, the ATP were being real a-holes and wouldn't grant him much needed time off! He would have likely won several more FO's alone! He was the unquestioned King of clay; only 1 person having the game to defeat him on his home court at RG,
Adriano Panatta! He was Borg's Soderling! Some had the notion McEnroe ran him off the tour after defeating him in '81's Wimbl. & USO; total BS! They were rivals and friends! IIRC they were like Graf &
Navratilova and were "even Steven" in their records against one another! I also remember that clothing line was on a ship that sunk and wasn't insured which also contributed to his financial difficulties! They didn't make real $$ on tour or with endorsements the way they do now! If in the top echelons of tennis back in the 70's, you were lucky to gross $200,000 on the tour! He should have done like Connors and
"whored" himself out for
"winner take all" exhibitions, but didn't at the time! I still haven't seen the
Borg/McEnroe movie, so had no idea he had a drug problem! I thought his infatuation with an Italian singer (
Loredana Bertè) was what sent him spiraling out of control, but I may never really know all, contributing to his mystique! :whistle:
