Flashback

John McEnroe remembers his friend Bjorn Borg at the Stockholm Open, 1978

Until recently I hadn’t seen this photo for 30 years, but suddenly it keeps getting sent to me to sign. It was taken during my frst year on the pro circuit, and that tournament was the frst time I played Björn. It reminds me of before I joined the circuit, seeing girls screaming outside the locker room. I remember thinking, ‘This guy looks so cool. I hope I can be a professional tennis player and experience something of what he is experiencing.’

When you have a hero who you have the opportunity to compete against, and ultimately become friends and rivals with, it’s very weird to meet them, but he was disarming. It meant a lot to me that he showed me respect in the locker room when he didn’t have to. He ofered me friendship and support, and as a 19-year-old that was extremely important. Having him do that was huge for me.

People think we had our diferences, but we didn’t really, and of-court our personalities were more similar than people realised. We had similar senses of humour, we looked at things in the same way and we were bemused by a lot that was going on. So even though our personalities on-court were completely diferent, I didn’t feel that of the court at all, which made it easier for us to be friends. And then on-court diferences actually helped us as rivals in the way we were perceived.

When I beat Borg in the 1981 Wimbledon fnal, after he’d won the previous fve in a row, it seemed like there was a bit of a relief for him as his enormous success had created this intense pressure. When I played him at the US Open a couple of months later it was almost as if he’d emotionally lost his edge, like he didn’t want to be there, which I didn’t understand at the time.

Then it all happened so fast. He went from being my biggest rival and the sport exploding, to saying he wasn’t going to play any more, aged 26. I was disappointed as I felt we were making each other better and tennis more exciting, and I wish our rivalry had lasted longer.

We played again in the seniors’ tour a few times, which helped the competitive juices fow, but the pressure level was nothing compared to Wimbledon. We don’t see each other as much as I’d like today as we have kids and live on diferent sides of the Atlantic, but there is a mutual respect and love, and I spent a couple of days with him in Paris this year for his birthday.

We haven’t played for a few years, and who knows if we’ll ever play again, but it feels like we could almost do it blindfolded because we know each other’s games so well. I play one way, he plays another.

When you have a hero who you have the opportunity to compete against, and ultimately become friends and rivals with, it’s very weird to meet them