Epic: John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and the Greatest Tennis Season Ever
By Matthew Cronin, John Wiley & Sons, 312 pages, $25.95
Where were you when Bjorn Borg beat John McEnroe to win Wimbledon '80? Every tennis fan (of a certain age) knows the living room or clubhouse where he watched those five electrifying sets. It was the best match in tennis' finest era — and who wouldn't want to return to it, as Matthew Cronin allows us to do in his new book, Epic: John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and the Greatest Tennis Season Ever (John Wiley & Sons).
Cronin, a veteran tennis journalist and IT's senior writer, clearly knows his backhands and forehands. And he's enough of a match geek to note salient trivia, such as the astonishing fact that, for all the final's epic length and intensity, Borg won only two more points than McEnroe — 242 to 240 — when he triumphed 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7(16), 8-6 at the All England Club.
But the author wisely keeps the play-by-play to a minimum, offering instead a dual biography, historical snapshot — and fascinating study in contrasts. McEnroe didn't win a junior tournament until he was 16; at the same age, Borg set a record as the youngest player to win a Davis Cup match. At 18, Borg was a sheltered pro who spent his free time reading comic books; McEnroe was a student-athlete at Stanford. (Although Mac hardly challenged his intellect, Cronin notes; one of his courses was “Sleep, Narcolepsy and Politics.”)
As Cronin maps their separate paths to the Wimbledon final, he makes some unexpectedly frank assertions. Why did longtime coach Lennart Bergelin look the other way when Borg became an enthusiastic partier, prompting rumors that Bergelin was an “enabler?” Bergelin not only thought that containing his player's personal life was beyond the call of duty, but also, Cronin writes, doing so would be “a risk to his position.”
Likewise, tantalizing material sheds light on how McEnroe's peers viewed his on-court boorishness. His ex-doubles partner Peter Fleming admits that they're still working out the kinks in their relationship, while former pro Sandy Mayer gives a blistering interview, railing against the excessive time McEnroe spent preparing for each serve, purposely stalling to ruffle opponents and making a mockery of the 30-second rule. “It was cheating, but the game didn't enforce the rules,” Mayer says. “Johnny Mac would not have been nearly the player that he was if the rules were applied.”
Ultimately, Cronin crafts a snapshot of a golden, fleeting era, when wooden rackets kept the game's pace and athleticism relatable to audiences and outsized personalities heightened rivalries. The final chapters follow these boys of summer '80 to the U.S. Open final, where McEnroe exacts revenge by beating Borg 7-6, 6-1, 6-7, 5-7, 6-4.
After the loss, Borg leaves the stadium quickly with his soon-to-be-wife, Mariana Simionescu, foreshadowing the abrupt exit he'll make from the sport itself — an early retirement that will usher in the end of tennis' finest hour. As McEnroe says in the book's penultimate chapter: “That's the funny thing about tennis and games. They may be awe-inspiring at the moment, but then the moment is gone. They are a little like poetry written on water.”
