Sports Then and Now

The 1980s were a Golden Era for Professional Tennis.

It was the best of times – Tennis in the Eighties – when the thrill of tense tiebreaks entered everyman’s domicile, highlighted by exotic locales like Paris, Melbourne, London and New York.

The 1980s tennis also ushered in exciting yet exasperating players whose on-court conduct thrilled, engaged and enraged fans across the globe.

The ’80s energized the popularity base and took tennis out of country clubs and landed estates and into public parks and arenas.  It became a sport in contrast to an amenable pastime.

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The 1981 season proved to the final one of Bjorn Bjorg's career.

The Iceman Melts Away…

It was like being evicted from your neighborhood playground where you practiced ball all of your life, where you reigned as King of the Mountain, swatting down the little kids who scrabbled toward you to reach the top.  That is what Bjorn Borg felt like after being dethroned during the trophy presentation at the conclusion of Wimbledon in 1981.

This new kid, this John McEnroe, was taking away his perch and making him feel ordinary.  So what do you do when someone invades your kingdom and steals your crown? You storm his castle and try to take what belongs to him—tit for tat or an eye for an eye.

This, according to Lesley Visser of The Boston Globe (Sept. 1, 1981), caused Bjorn Borg to declare that winning the U.S. Open was his greatest passion—which he had been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish since he was 16 years of age.

At the time he uttered this fateful sentiment, Borg was 25 years of age and had been playing professional tennis for 11 years, since the age of 14.

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Bjorn Borg was the face of tennis in the late 1970s.

For Bjorn Borg, the summer of 1980 was a time of highs and lows, of thrilling victory followed by stunning defeat.

His holding pattern persisted, as Borg, who won three consecutive doubles at the French Open and Wimbledon, lost his bid again for a chance at a calendar-year Grand Slam at the conclusion of 1980’s season in the sun.

During that sultry summer, two men met on fateful Sundays in July and in September to tighten the screw on Borg’s legacy. After 10 U.S. Opens, Borg sensed that his time to win this elusive Grand Slam was slipping away. He looked across the net at the up-and-coming John McEnroe and felt his tennis future fading.

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Bjorn Borg was the face of professional tennis in the 1970s.

“My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.”
- Bjorn Borg

Former world No. 1 and Swedish teen sensation Bjorn Borg brought fame, fortune, and much-needed publicity to tennis in the mid-70s, when he began to play. His long blond hair, smoldering good looks, and rock-star status elevated tennis in the hearts of teenaged girls, if not the media corps.

There was a rhythm, a dance in his cat-like movements along the baseline as he swayed back and forth, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, tensed, ready to pounce as his opponent hit the ball over the net—like a cat playing with a mouse.

Borg understood the necessity of being in shape, of being as strong at the end of matches as you were at the beginning. This athleticism allowed him to dictate matches and gave him five Wimbledon Championships and six French Open Titles, often won back-to-back. Borg was the author of the modern game built on talent, but bolstered by strength and endurance.

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