It’s hard to believe, but at this stage of life, or of tennis, delightful anecdotes still occur, like gifts from heaven.
Rafael Nadal (38), who refuses to retire no matter what his body, his game, his environment, or the onlookers say, is extending his sports career on the clay courts of Bastad. So confident does he feel that he is competing in the doubles draw (he plays alongside Casper Ruud) as well as in the singles draw, where he faces Leo Borg.
Leo Borg is 21 years old and has a condition that can be either a gift or a stigma: his father is Björn Borg. Mythomaniacs will remember the figure.
Björn Borg (68) is a tennis legend, known as “the ice man,” the rival of John McEnroe (a movie recreates their duel at Wimbledon in 1980), a stoic Swede whose tennis devoured his opponents, propelling him to infinity and beyond, with his eleven Grand Slams (six at Roland Garros, five at Wimbledon), his 109 weeks as the number one on the circuit, his blonde mane trimmed with a headband, the image of a pop star, all of which made him an icon.
The wise say that his appearance marked a turning point in the world of tennis: in an essentially Anglo-Saxon discipline, Borg transcended. He was the first global tennis player.
Leo Borg says he has never seen a video of his father, he has never seen him play. He also mentions that he immersed himself in the world of tennis at the age of six, hitting forehands against the walls of his grandmother’s basement, and that his mother, Patricia, Björn Borg’s third wife, had tried to dissuade him: she had wanted to spare him traumas, prevent him from being compared to his father.
Geniuses have these things: Gabriel García Márquez’s children recount that their father worried about them, fearing he would cannibalize them, snatch away their happiness if any of the kids pursued a career in literature.
– Son, dedicate to soccer.
Very insistent mother, but she had failed in the attempt.
At fifteen, Leo decided he would become a tennis player, no matter what happened.
Tennis player like his father?
– Well, a tennis player like Nadal. It was him who inspired me,” he says to anyone who asks him.
