Tennis, drugs and alcohol: Bjorn Borg shares his memories in a book

When he retired from tennis in 1983, at just 26 years old, Bjorn Borg was at his peak. Winner of 11 Grand Slam titles, over 100 weeks at number one in the world rankings, and an icon of talent and style capable of drawing crowds, the Swedish tennis player was the sport's first international superstar, when the internet was only a future reality. Borg simply stopped playing and has spoken little since, true to the cool, impassive, and icy image on the court that earned him the nickname 'Ice Borg.'

Until now, with the release of his memoir, "Hearbeats ," in which he reveals that the samurai-like tennis player spiraled into a turmoil in the following years with alcohol and drug addiction, pill abuse, numerous relationships, depression, and two near-fatal overdoses. "This has been bothering me for many years. People know me as a tennis player, but they don't know what I went through. The decisions I made in my life were stupid , so I wanted to tell that story," the former tennis player revealed in an interview with The Guardian , on the occasion of the book's release.

Interviews and all the attention from fans and media outlets were a reality young Bjorn Borg wasn't comfortable with. Only tennis—where he emerged as a brilliant teenager, winning Roland Garros shortly after turning 18—interested him. "Until then, I was completely focused on tennis. I ate, slept, trained, played matches. And I loved it. I had a lot of fun," he recalled. But at 25, with a succession of records that would last decades on the world circuit, Borg lost his motivation.

"At hotels, when I checked in, there would be at least 100 people at the reception looking for autographs. If I went to a restaurant, there would be 15 photographers waiting outside and following me. In the end, when I was playing, I just stayed in my room. I ate in my room. I didn't go out. That's why I walked away from tennis. I thought, 'Is this my life in the future?' That's why I said 'enough,'" he explained. And so, without a word to his fans or fellow tennis players, Borg put down his racket and walked off the court. Only American John McEnroe, with whom he had a historic rivalry, called him insistently to come back .

He left Monte Carlo, where he lived with former Romanian tennis player Mariana Simionescu, and headed to Long Island, in the United States. He left the world tennis circuit and joined the party circuit. In the summer of 1982, far from the court, he discovered other white lines in cocaine that would dictate the course of the following years. "I said to myself, ' Oh, this is a different feeling. This is something different.' I felt the same adrenaline I felt in tennis . The feeling itself was new and made me feel incredibly energetic. I was hooked immediately," he said.

The problem, according to Borg, was that there was nothing else to do. Without the tennis routine, the Swede felt lost and depressed, which led him even further into seeking new escapes from his problems, with more drugs and alcohol. He divorced Mariana Simionescu in 1984 and had a son with a Swedish model in 1985. Borg, now 69 and recovering from prostate cancer, emphasized that his son, Robin, was the only good thing that happened to him during that decade. "When you feel bad, you try to escape. I tried to escape with drugs, pills, and lots of alcohol. I was looking for something, but I didn't know what. When you consume these things, you don't have to think about your problems," he said.

Despite all the excesses for someone who never overdid it on the court, Bjorn Borg didn't describe himself in the interview with the British newspaper as an addict, as he didn't indulge in vices every night. At the same time, he never stopped demanding himself physically and maintained the athleticism of his days as a professional tennis player. However, the Swede was in an advanced state of decline and in 1989 reached his limit. That year, he married Italian singer Loredana Bertè, moved to Milan, but didn't change his lifestyle. In February , he suffered an accidental overdose. The only reason it wasn't fatal was because his wife called an ambulance in time .

He couldn't stop immediately, and it wasn't until 1990 that he decided to leave that life behind, reconnecting with his rackets. "I asked myself, 'Have I played this sport before?' I played so badly it was ridiculous. So I said to myself, 'I'm not doing this to be a tennis player, I'm not doing this to win tournaments—I'm doing this for a different reason,'" he emphasized. He moved to London, began training, entered rehab, and the following year, at 34, decided to return to tennis.

In April 1991, he returned to play in an ATP tournament, this time in Monte Carlo. The wooden racket was from his glory days, but Borg was no longer the player he once was. He lost in straight sets (6-2, 6-3) to Spanish tennis player Jordi Arrese, a modest 52nd in the world rankings. It was, in Borg's words, one of the happiest days of his life.

"Then, I'm sitting in the backseat of the car and my parents are in the front. They look at me and say, 'You look so happy.' Yes, I was very happy and satisfied. It was a wonderful moment after everything I'd been through. Sitting in the car, I was so glad I'd done it. I felt, 'I'm back to life. I'm finally back to life.' Only my parents knew the real reason I'd returned to tennis. No one else," he said, explaining the reason: " I came back to stay alive ."

In the 1990s, he suffered several relapses, one of them nearly fatal in 1993, in front of his father as he was preparing to play a tournament. He survived again. He divorced once more. The champions circuit, for veteran tennis players, then opened a new door for him, and in 1999, when he met Patricia Ostfeldt, his current wife, he rehabilitated himself.

It was with the help of Patricia—with whom he had another son, Leo, also a professional tennis player, in 2003—that he was finally able to break his silence and tell his story in Heartbeats . "I was so happy she accepted, because if she hadn't, this book would never have been published. I would have taken my story to the grave. She asked, 'What do you want to put in it?' And I said, 'Everything.'"