Bored Bjorn Borg "I was not prepared for life" after retiring from tennis

Former world number one Bjorn Borg has stated that he was mentally not prepared to retire from the sport.

The 67-year-old is rated as one of the all-time greats in the history of men’s singles tennis in the Open era, having won as many as 11 Grand Slam titles in his illustrious career which lasted for nearly two decades.

Borg, in a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, stated that he enjoyed the first few years post-retirement but soon realised that he was not mentally prepared to quit tennis.

“After I retired, the first couple of years were great because I didn’t have a schedule,” he said. “I was not motivated to play tennis, and I wanted to do other things, so I was a very happy person because I could do whatever I felt like doing.

“With tennis for so many years I had my schedule, and I knew exactly what I would do every day. But then after those two, three years off tennis, I started to get bored because I didn’t have the schedule and I was not prepared for life.

“I think today when people step away from sports, they are prepared. I was not. I was trying to jump to different areas of business and different things, but I didn’t have one particular thing I wanted to do. But it turned out well for me anyway.”

The six-time French Open winner further went on to state that tennis as a sport has changed a lot from the time he played on the court.

“I think tennis has changed,” said Borg. “It’s a different tennis today than when we played. There are more players today, the competition is so much tougher, there’s so many more countries today playing tennis than when we played. They hit the ball so much harder today than we did.”