One of the new books I was most looking forward to this year is Björn Borg’s new memoir, Heartbeats. The Swedish icon has finally pulled back the curtain on his rise to tennis stardom, his sudden retirement, and the years of silence that followed. The legendary tennis player virtually disappeared from competitive tennis before his 26th birthday, having won 11 majors, including five consecutive Wimbledon titles. His sudden departure left tennis fans wondering what happened.
While Borg is listed as the author, the reality is that his current wife, Patricia Östfeldt Borg, did most of the heavy lifting as his ghostwriter and confidante. Borg himself acknowledges that Heartbeats would not have been written without her. That fact explains both the intimacy of some sections and perhaps excuses some occasionally uneven editing. Additionally, I noticed some errors in the English translation that might not exist in the original.
Borg openly addresses issues that were long rumored but never fully confirmed. That includes his struggles with addiction, brushes with self-destruction, and the chaos of his post-tennis life. Yet even in these revelations, the book often underscores what made Borg both fascinating and frustrating. At his core, he was a reluctant communicator. He admits that interviews were torture, and that he struggled to answer even simple questions about his feelings. Those limitations were painfully apparent in his short-lived career as a television analyst, and they are unfortunately echoed in this memoir. The result is that even the salacious details, such as his time hanging out with actual rock stars, his drug use, and the excesses of celebrity, frequently border on dull.
That’s not to say Heartbeats is without color. Some stories reveal Borg as a little eccentric, even unmoored. He writes about placing great faith in a medium to help him escape bouts of overthinking, a choice that feels both bizarre and telling. There are also flashes of vividness when he turns to the tennis itself. His account of the 1980 Wimbledon final against John McEnroe, often billed as the greatest match ever played, stands out as particularly detailed. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, whether the dramatization of that match in the Borg vs. McEnroe movie sharpened his memory in hindsight. Either way, that section is one of the book’s high points.
Context is key in reading Heartbeats. Ben Rothenberg’s Bounces blog recently published a conversation with journalist Michael Mewshaw that underscores my own impression that Borg’s story is much more complicated than what he puts on the page. Mewshaw, who has tracked Borg’s post-career troubles since his 1983 book Short Circuit, points to glaring omissions missing from the backdrop. Specifically, the cocaine epidemic that warped tennis in the 1980s, the all-cash marketplace of appearance fees, and the sport’s lack of educational and mental health safety nets. Borg nods to his demons, but he doesn’t fully grapple with the environment that enabled them.
The book’s most significant shortcoming for deep tennis fans may be its self-myopic focus without broadening the aperture to the context of professional tennis culture during his era. Heartbeats shares a lot about Borg’s emotional state, but it never quite explains his sudden departure from the sport. For fans who want a definitive answer to that mystery, the memoir will both frustrate and enlighten. I suspect the reality is that Borg doesn’t understand his reasons himself.
Still, Heartbeats is worth reading for die-hard tennis fans. It is extremely honest and candid and presents a rare opportunity to finally hear Borg’s voice, however muted it may be. He remains an idol, a legend, and an enigma. This memoir doesn’t resolve that tension but brings more details into the public eye and fills in some of the blanks from the annals of tennis history.
Heartbeats: A Memoir (<- Sponsored Link)
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