Sport: The Tennis Machine

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adult—with two hands for both his forehand shot and his backhand, the same way he wielded a hockey stick. Since the only way he knew to swing a racquet was the wristy stroke of the table-tennis player, he flicked tennis balls the same way. The Borg topspin thus was born. By all that is classic in the sport, everything about Borg's strokes was wrong. But his mother remembers one thing that was right: "Even then he loved to play. Even then he hated to lose. Even in his pretend games, he always wanted to win."

When he was ten, he was big enough at last to be allowed on the courts. Every w day hen he he got was up at ten, he 6:30 and was headed for the local park, hanging around until bedtime waiting for a chance to play. "Sometimes people would reserve the court for an hour, but only play 55 minutes," he recalls.

"They would leave the court for five minutes, and those five minutes, I was in there hitting the ball. Everybody thought I was crazy."

Before long, he had progressed from a scrawny kid who could hit the ball over the net two or three times in a row to a scrawny kid who could hit the ball back 20 times without missing. Then he started to play games — and to win them. His parents joined an indoor tennis club in Stockholm so that he could play during the winter months, often sitting Saturday nights over endless cups of coffee near the almost deserted courts while Bjorn played game after game, set after set. Says Margareta Borg: "He al ways said, 'Just one more set, please, just one.' It was never just one."

When he started to play in junior tour naments, there was no mistaking his tal ent, but his unorthodox strokes were a bewilderment. As he grew stronger, he gave up using both hands on his forehand, but the two-handed backhand had be come a fixture of his game, as had the fondness for topspin.

As a teenager, Borg was pressured by a succession of well-meaning coaches to alter his game. One exception was Lennart Bergelin, appointed Sweden's Davis Cup captain in 1970 and charged with dis covering and developing young players.

Bergelin, now 55, first saw Borg at a ju nior tournament. A year later the 14-yearold joined Bergelin's team of Davis Cup hopefuls. Bergelin remembers the early criticism of Borg's style: "No one had ever seen anything like the way this boy played, so no one thought he could play successfully. But it was his way, and for him it was the only way. I did not try to change him."

It was just as well, for by then Borg had developed the unshakable will that has become the hallmark of his game. The man who will run after every ball hit to him, refusing to concede a winning shot, was evident in the boy who listened politely to his critics—and ignored them. "When I was twelve, people told me that if I want to be successful, I must change my style, change my grip, give up this two-handed backhand. I said I would change, but I knew I wouldn't. The truth is I am a very stubborn person. I was hitting the ball and it felt good to me, so I said to myself, why change? It is important to find your own personality in the game, your own style. You have to find it; no one else can find it for you."

In one other respect, Borg at twelve was Borg at 24: unflappable on the court, a mannerly competitor who rarely