Bjorn Borg opened up on his first experience trying cocaine, and the feeling of using drugs replacing tennis during his hedonistic days in the wake of retiring from the sport at just 26.
The Swedish superstar burst onto the tennis scene in the 1970s and claimed his first Grand Slam title – the 1974 French Open – at the tender age of 18.
Borg went on to win 11 majors and 66 singles titles in total before shocking the sport with the announcement that he was stepping back after only 10 years on tour.
The 69-year-old has since recounted in his memoir, Heartbeats, details about the lost decades which shaped his early retirement, with his startling drug use a frequent feature of the late 1980s and 90s.
But in an interview with the Times, Borg described the pull he felt to the drug after being offered cocaine at a party in New York.
‘They always had parties in Manhattan,’ Borg said of the time, after explaining that he had been in the US in a bid to sell his house on Long Island in the summer of 1982. ‘So I went to one of the parties
Bjorn Borg (right) has opened up on his wild partying days in the wake of his retirement at 26
The Swedish tennis superstar won an impressive 11 Grand Slams but saw later decades lost to the grip of using drugs and alcohol
‘I thought, “I’m not playing tennis any more, so I can try (cocaine).” It would be better not to try it. Going into drugs or pills or alcohol – it’s terrible.
‘But then in the end, I took more drugs and pills, and it’s just to find happiness. Where is happiness?’
Borg then compared the rush of using cocaine to the rush he felt at the pinnacle of his playing career.
But the grip of using drugs and alcohol came with dangerous consequences, with Borg describing in his memoir two horrifying instances where he overdosed on a combination of the two.
The first took place in Milan, seven years after his first encounter with cocaine, when he was found by his then-wife Loredana and taken to hospital to have his stomach pumped.
Borg’s hospital visit made international headlines with reporting alleging that the retired star had attempted suicide.
He had then tried to cover up that he had been using ‘a dangerous mix of drugs, pills, and alcohol’ by saying that he had a bad reaction to sleeping pills taken in a bid to alleviate stomach pains after a heavy evening meal.
He also describes the moment he collapsed on a bridge in the Netherlands, going into cardiac arrest and requiring resuscitation.
The 69-year-old won his first French Open title in 1976 and went on to claim five more in Paris
But in 1982 (pictured) Borg tried cocaine for the first time, which gave him a tennis-like rush
He writes: ‘I feel the ground beneath my feet heaving. It’s like I’m moving in the air; I can’t move forward. We have to cross a bridge, a typical Dutch bridge over a canal where houseboats are swaying.
‘At that moment, I sink to the ground. Everything goes black, and the unimaginable happens. I’m dying. I see no bright light or a film of my life passing by; everything is simply gone.
‘My heart no longer goes boom boom boom, because now it’s standing still. Yet, just before everything goes black, I think: how could it have come to this?’
The evening had begun with a lowkey dinner but soon descended into a lethal cocktail of drink and drugs.
The party was in the midst of an exhibition tournament and Borg said: ‘I ran into people I knew from outside the tennis world. One thing led to another. Drugs, alcohol, and pills were added.
‘After a very short night, I walked to the tennis park with my father. I said, “I feel so bad, I can’t play.” He replied that it would be fine. And then, bang, I collapsed.’
Borg reflects that the ‘worst shame of it all’ was waking up in the hospital bed to see his father beside him.
Borg managed to stop the drink and drugs with the help of his third wife, Patricia Östfeld, who ghostwrote his memoir and has been his partner for 25 years.
