![\"Borg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bjorn-borg-former-champion-takes-1024707641.jpg\")
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Borg won six French Open and five Wimbledon titlesCredit: Getty<\/p>\n
Borg made the shock decision to retire<\/a> in 1983 at the age of 26, just two years after delivering more French Open<\/a> success.<\/p>\n He made a brief return from 1991 to 1993, but has now revealed his reasoning for initially calling it quits despite being at his peak.<\/p>\n Speaking<\/a> via the BBC, he admitted: “I had enough. I lost the interest and the motivation.<\/p>\n “If I knew what was going to happen in the years after, I would continue to play tennis.”<\/p>\n In his new autobiography Heartbeats: A Memoir, Borg opened up on the difficulties he faced off the court after his retirement.<\/p>\n “I had no plan. People today, they have guidance. I was lost in the world,” he revealed. “There was more drugs, there was pills, alcohol, to escape myself from reality.<\/p>\n “I didn’t have to think about it. Of course it’s not good, it destroys you as a person.”<\/p>\n Borg did not win a single match on his tour return, and suffered a heart attack in front of his father Rune midway through the 1990s.<\/p>\n “I wake up and I see my father in front of me,” he said via The Athletic. “I was very close to dying<\/a>. I feel so ashamed. So embarrassed. Those kinds of things, I don’t know why I do it.<\/p>\n “I’m just happy that I could think in a good way to change my life and enjoy my life again. That was very important.<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n Borg has recalled his off-court struggles and cancer diagnosisCredit: Getty<\/p>\n “To be involved with drugs or pills or too much alcohol, that destroys, that\u2019s the worst thing you can do. <\/p>\n “And that\u2019s what I realised in the end. I had to change my life. I could not continue doing this. That\u2019s why I came back to tennis. <\/p>\n “But if I regret something, it\u2019s just to try to be involved with these things I regret that so much because that’s so bad and that destroys you as a human being.”<\/p>\n Borg has revealed that he has ‘extremely aggressive’ prostate cancer and is currently in remission following an operation last year.<\/p>\n “I spoke to the doctor and he said this is really, really bad,” he said on BBC Breakfast.<\/p>\n “He said you have these sleeping cancer cells [and] it’s going to be a fight in the future.<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n Borg was a consistent throughout the 1970’sCredit: Getty<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n How Borg became an all-time tennis great<\/p>\n An appearance at the 1972 Davis Cup with Sweden aged just 15 would signal the start of a hugely successful career on the court.<\/p>\n Borg won his first French Open title two years later to become the then youngest champion at Roland Garros at 18-years-old.<\/p>\n He defended his crown a year later and later won the 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981 editions.<\/p>\n Wimbledon<\/a> was also a favourite of his as he sensationally won five titles in a row from 1976 to 1980.<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n Borg and McEnroe were long-term rivals on the tourCredit: Getty<\/p>\n![\"Borg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bjorn-borg-sweden-holds-trophy-1024707660.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Borg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/NINTCHDBPICT000831708440.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Borg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/tennis-player-bjorn-borg-congratulates-1024707664.jpg\")
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