Sport: The Tennis Machine

(9 of 10)
in 1978, he jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed. But he seldom indulges in nights of horseplay. His reverie is of the perfect day: "To be at our summer place in Sweden, to go out with the boat, to be on the sea. You are by yourself. No one is talking. There is just the wind."

When he was a teen on the tennis circuit, much was made of Borg the high school dropout who passed his time reading comicbooks. His taste now runs to World War II novels and histories, but he finds it difficult to keep his mind on such tomes during a tournament. "No one believes how hard you have to concentrate on the court. After four hours of thinking, thinking, on every point, I come back to the hotel, and I am so mentally exhausted, all I can do is lie on the bed and watch the ceiling."

Borg's closest friend on the circuit is Gerulaitis, a free spirit whose disco-haunting life-style seems the antithesis of Borg's stay-at-home predilections. "Vitas likes to practice as much as I do," Borg explains. Gerulaitis calls Borg "a very private guy. He's got opinions on lots of subjects but doesn't talk much." So Borg remains an enigma to most of the players. Says Solomon: "I spent a week playing exhibitions with him, and I don't think we talked a total of ten minutes. Bjorn is quiet, real quiet and contained."

That containment extends to every area of his life. Borg's very existence is tuned to a single goal: winning tennis tournaments. Bergelin screens his telephone calls, tends to the constantly pinging racquets, arranges courts for practice, even massages away the muscle kinks. Skilled financial advisers invest his winnings, negotiate his contracts. Plane and hotel reservations, cars and drivers materialize in cities around the world, the work of agents and secretaries. Borg moves through life a charmed man; all considerations save tennis have been spared him.

Borg remains a modest man. He attributes much of his success in tennis to his quiet off-court life. "Since I met Mariana, there is more to my life than tennis, tennis, tennis. I can take a loss better than I could before, because now I have someone to go home to and the defeat is not so lonely. But also since I met Mariana, I have had my greatest success in tennis. I have won the big tournaments, the titles I wanted to win so that I could become a great champion." Whatever the reasons, Borg's fellow pros find him a gracious competitor. Says Tom Gullickson, who has beaten Borg once in their three meetings: "He's a real gentleman. He doesn't make excuses when he loses. Bjorn wins with class and loses with class."

Borg focuses on the major tournaments with single-minded determination. Grand slam events like Wimbledon demand two weeks of unremitting play at the highest level. A minor injury, the briefest lapse in concentration can result in elimination. Borg sees to it that he is at the top of his form for the major events, rested and ready. He arranges his schedule to provide a break from match tension, with at least a week to practice on courts that duplicate the tournament surface.

Then Borg is nothing less than a tennis juggernaut. Only his eyes betray the fierce competitive fires within: when the ball is hit toward him, they widen, then darken with concentration as he follows the ball to his racquet.