Swedish world champion tennis player nicknamed “the Iceman” for a blazing style and a deadly forehand, despite the fact that he uses a two-handed backhand. He made his debut at 15 in the Davis Cup Competition and rose to world class status in two short years, making $100,000 a year by 1974. He lived a thrifty and disciplined life during his early competitive years in spite of the image he created with long hair and fast sports cars.
First wife, Romanian tennis ace Mariana Simionescu divorced him in 1984 after four years. Borg was married for the second time on 9/04/1989 to Italian rock singer Loredana Berte. In between his two marriages, he had a three-year liaison with Swedish model Jannicke Bjorling that led to a custody battle over their child, Robin, who was born on 9/18/1985.
After winning Wimbledon five times and the French Open six times, Borg retired from the pro tour in 1983, stating unequivocally that he would never play again, “I am nauseated by tennis.”
His public and personal life both reached crises proportions in 1991. Then 34, he faced Spain’s Jordi Arrese, 26 at a tournament in Monte Carlo and was soundly trounced on 4/23/1991. The following day, police answered his frantic call to request that they go to his Milan apartment. They found his wife of two years, Loredana Berte, unconscious on the floor of the apartment. They rushed her to the hospital where she had her stomach pumped. As soon as the suicide attempt became known, rumors began flying across the tarmac. Borg did not appear at his stricken wife’s side until 30 hours later and the media dug up a recent magazine photo of Borg with another woman at his side. Berte was released from the hospital after four days.
Some speculated that Borg’s own emergency hospitalization in February 1989 was a suicide attempt, though he blamed food poisoning and a toxic reaction to prescription drugs. His second marriage, with Loredana ended 4/22/1993.
Meantime, his personal wealth, once estimated at $75 million, is said to have been whittled away by bad investment, and a former business associate, Lars Skarke, claims that Borg cheated him and has filed a $12 million law suit. Some say that he has squandered away $150 million but more importantly, he squandered the good will that came to him as easily as the money during his tennis years.
As a player, Borg was brilliantly focused and a master of the mind game. His first earnings went to buy a new grocery store for his humble-shopkeeper parents. He founded a sportswear firm, the Bjorn Borg Design Group that initially was golden. As his personal life became more complicated and stressed, his business empire also began to crumble. His formal education was limited to a few years of high school and he knew little about running corporations or holding companies. His literary tastes run to Donald Duck comic books. In July 1989, he turned down a $4.6 million offer to restructure his company, declaring that he would not relinquish control. “In a certain sense,” Borg said, “Tennis is simpler than life.”
Borg, 46, married Patricia Ostfeldt, 32, a real estate broker, on 6/08/2002, near Stockholm.
Link to Wikipedia biography