Bjorn Borg: Taming a Passionate Spirit

Bjorn Borg’s hometown: Sodertalje, Sweden.

Bjorn Borg’s father, Rune, loved table tennis, but it didn’t put bread on the table in his town of Sodertalje, Sweden, so he kept his day job selling clothes while his wife, Margarethe, stayed at home. But Rune still competed like mad, and in 1965 he won first prize at the city table tennis championships: a tennis racket.

He gave it to his only child, nine-year-old Bjorn, who immediately headed off to discover what it would feel like to hit larger balls into a larger court and at the same time actually run after them, unlike in the more stationary table tennis.

Bjorn’s first wife, Mariana Simionescu described his hometown, Sodertalje,as “a row of little cubes.” She says there is a sameness there, a consistency, that informs the character of the man she married.

There was a small tennis club in Sodertalje, but as a beginner Bjorn had a hard time getting matches. So he did what every kid of his era did: he found something to hit against that would hit back. That turned out to be the family’s garage door, and it would be a perfect opponent. When boy hits ball against door,…