NEW YORK – Tennis great Bjorn Borg revealed in the final chapter of his upcoming memoir “Heartbeat,” that he had been diagnosed with “very aggressive” prostate cancer, telling the Associated Press that he is in remission after 2024 surgery.
“I don’t have anything right now, but I have to go every six months to check on myself. The whole process is not fun,” the 69-year-old Borg said in a recent video interview with the Associated Press from his home in Stockholm. “But it’s fine. It’s fine. I feel very good.”
Borg won 11 Grand Slam singles titles – at the French Open 6 from 1974 to 1981, and walking away from tennis at the age of 26 for five consecutive times at Wimbledon from 1976 to 1980, he made a brief return. The surprising early retirement is one of several subjects, including his drug use and relationships with women, parents and children, and is scheduled to be announced in the UK on September 18th and in the US on September 23rd.
The famous Private Borg said he wrote it with his wife Patricia for about two and a half years.
“I went through some difficult times, but (doing this book is a relief for me,” Borg said. “I felt so good.”
He said he had been testing for prostate cancer “for years.” Because, “You don’t feel anything.
He said he wanted to follow up because his doctors discovered something troublesome in September 2023.
That was just before Borg was going to fly to Canada to captain Team Europe in the Rubber Cup, and doctors said he shouldn’t go.
“Of course I went to Vancouver. I didn’t listen,” he said.
After the event he returned to Sweden and went to the hospital at 7am the following day for further testing confirming his cancer diagnosis. The surgery was scheduled for February 2024. This is a latency borg that explained to the AP “psychologically… because it’s so difficult, because who knows what’s going to happen.”
Borg said his latest tests came back clean in August.
In the book, he writes: “Now I have a new partner with cancer – I can’t control it, but I’m going to beat it. I won’t give up.
