Though his modern-era record of five Wimbledon Singles Championships has been overtaken by Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg remains at the pinnacle of the all-time greats of The Championships by virtue of two statistics: those five successive victories between 1976 and 1980 and the fact that he also pulled off in three consecutive years the most difficult “double” in tennis, victory on clay at the French Open and on grass at Wimbledon.

Becoming champion in quick succession on such alien surfaces has been achieved before, most notably by Rod Laver in his Grand Slam years of 1962 and 1969, but since Borg only Andre Agassi has managed to win both Roland Garros and Wimbledon – and in his case seven years separated the two achievements.

There was, alas, a price to be paid for Borg's genius, and it was a heavy one. After annexing 11 Grand Slam singles (six French, five Wimbledon) in the space of eight years, the enigmatic Swede quit the sport at 26, mentally drained and physically exhausted by those extraordinary demands. It is unlikely tennis will ever see his like again in terms of an athlete driven by single-mindedness to such success.

In nine tilts at the Men's Singles between the years of 1973 and 1981, Borg won 51 matches and lost four. Between his 1975 quarter-final defeat by the eventual champion, Arthur Ashe, and his loss in the 1981 final to John McEnroe, Borg won 41 consecutive singles at The Championships.

What is less well known about Borg's grass court prowess is that he also won Junior Wimbledon in 1972 at the age of 16, recovering from a 5-2 deficit in the final set to overcome Britain's Buster Mottram.

At the 1976 Championships ,in an astonishing sequence Borg demolished seven opponents, culminating with Ilie Nastase, without dropping a set. It was only the fourth time a man had done that at Wimbledon, and it has not been accomplished since.

It had thus been demonstrated in devastating fashion that Borg's finest qualities, speed about the court, heavily topspun groundstrokes and mental strength, translated readily from clay to grass. It was that mental strength, allied to his sheer never-say-die quality, which subsequently rescued him four times from looming defeat in his incredible run of Wimbledon success.

It was needed in the 1980 final against McEnroe, a match nominated by many as Wimbledon's greatest ever. Having lost the opening set 6-1 to an all-out McEnroe assault, Borg took the next two 7-5, 6-3 and had two Championship points at 5-4 in the fourth. But McEnroe averted disaster and went on to level the match in Wimbledon's most memorable tie-break, which he won 18-16, saving five more match points.

That renowned mental quality saw Borg through a testing 8-6 fifth set for his fifth straight Wimbledon title.

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