Björn Borg vs John McEnroe AKAI 1982 (1 of 3)

[copavida]

Evolution of top spin shots of the players, 1st was Bjorn Borg, then came Marcelo Rios, and then the one and only Rafa.

[goofydog2]

Great vid! Thanks for bringing back just how awesome Borg could thread a needle with his shots. Their small racquets are almost amusing but in the hands of these two guys, they were deadly.

[THEKINKS08]

that's a great fucking video of Borg, you can clearly see that he was more beefy in the upper body, and he played very powerful shots. I'm italian, i can hear Lea Pericoli speaking for the Telemontecarlo broadcasting tv..

[moxur]

also when we compare bjorn to mac, we should consider they always met on hard court ,never on red court. so it measn always played in mac home court. bjorn won wimpledon and get many finals in us. ,mac never don something on red court

[moxur]

yes surely borg can win a lot for at least 85. don't think he can win wimbledon again but surely paris. his retired was one of worse day as a sport fan i had, and i'll nver understand the real reason of his retired.

[JimAsian1]

Bjorn Borg would have been able to compete with the even more powerful rackets if he had continued. I wonder how many more Grand Slam events he would have won. Who knows.

[onlinewolf74]

@ Borgforever

Look at Must vs. Sampras, Essen 1995. This is the way how Borg could have beaten "Pistol Pete".

[onlinewolf74]

Thomas Muster, of course. Although left hander, Borg was his idol!

[bandlea]

Damn if Borg Continued,he could have dominated until 1990 at least,he just seemed to get better,his shots were more powerful,i don't think even Becker would have stould a chance,but he is still the best in my opinion.

[sharpasaneraser]

yeah, i somewhat agree...i think borg would've picked up 3 more grandslams had he stayed until the age of 30 (85'-86'). mcenroe's game markedly improved with the graphite racket.

[semporini]

He would have won 1 or 2 Roland Garros, no more. IMO

[semporini]

with Mac in his prime I doubt so much. Later Lendl, WIlander, Becker and Edberg at scene would be almost impossible. For me the best since 1970

[jkygogo]

Hi, was this an official match? I looked up to see about this and their matches, and it wasn't listed. Can you please tell me about this? Also, when exactly was this played?

Thanks.

[Borgforever]

Hi! Yes Borg beat Lendl in the subsequent final with 6-1,6-4,6-2. This was a very well regarded exhibition tournament AKAI gold challenge in Sydney Nov 5-7 1982. Both Mac and Lendl had amazing indoor carpet winning streaks during this time but they couldn't touch Borg, who had been hard at work on his comeback in 83 (a plan he sadly abandoned in Jan 23 83). At the AKAI torunament I guess you would win the 30 million dollar gold racket if you won the tournament 5 or 7 times.

[incredibleXMan]

Wow I didn't know there was a planned comeback for 83 although I know he played some exhibitions in 82. Was it to with the atp not giving him a protected ranking?

[jkygogo]

I wish Bjorn would have continued after this. His rivalry with John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors could have gotten even better. And his coming up rivalry with Ivan Lendl could have be awesome to watch.

[jamesthomasmusic]

Thanks for posting this, great tennis, enjoyed it!

[Borgforever]

Just wait until the other two parts gets uploaded -- hehe -- Borg just gets better in this match... Insane in the end... And yes, taped from TV-screen to maximize contrast so the ball and players are clearly seen since the ball is hard to see in many other tennis-clips that otherwise look good...

[chapaev36]

You taped from from tv?

[chapaev36]

Such great passing shots too. The incredible thing about Borg is that his game seemed designed from slower surfaces, but he knew how to adjust to faster ones too. Here we're seeing a lot of great angled shots from him. What flexibility. Thanks for this!

[chapaev36]

This is really nice to have on YT, because most of the Borg clips here are from grass/clay surfaces, while this is a very fast carpet with a true bounce which gives the action a more contemporary look and shows how fast athletic these guys are. Borg looks like he's at the peak of his powers. One thing I notice is that his second serve got progressively better as he grew older and actually looked better than ever in 81 and I guess 82 as well (judging by this clip).