Borgeng

Two rackets used by Björn Borg
commented by Siegfried Kuebler
1980

© Copyright 2020
by
Siegfried Kuebler
Zur Grundel 18
D 88662 Überlingen

Two rackets used by Björn Borg
commented by Siegfried Kuebler
Borg was 18 to 27 years old in his active time from 1974
to 1983, an ambitious player and also the most successful.
He won 64 individual titles, including 11 Grand Slam
titles. From 1976 to 1980 he won five consecutive times
at Wimbledon and between 1974 and 1981 he secured
six titles at the French Open. As a team, he brought the
Davis Cup to Sweden for the first time in 1975. He also
won the season finale, the Masters, twice. In 1979 and
1980 he led the world rankings.
When he was a boy, he'd smashed his clubs on the
ground when things weren't going the way he wanted
them to. His behavior changed, when he turned older.
No outbursts of anger like his unloved opponent McEnroe,
not even grimacing when he shot an easy to hit ball
into the net. He was also called the 'ice cold' Nordic,
being a Swede. It was he who brought the topspin to
perfection and his opponents to despair because he could
play almost perfectly with this new technique. Bringing
the ball over the net once more than the opponent is the
secret to always winning. The forward spin of the ball
(topspin) results in a higher trajectory of the ball flight
and a high bounce from the ground after impact. Uncomfortable
for the opponent. The result was fewer balls
out and fewer balls in the net. However, he had to accept
that the balls slowed down. In order to at least compensate
for this somewhat, the ball had to be hit harder
with full force.
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He therefore worked constantly on his condition. His
arms were a toned muscle pack. He is said to have had a
resting heart pulse of 35. Healthy, normal people have e
rest pulse about twice that figure.
You could only play this topspin, if the grip was correct.
From the previously common continental grip you
had to change to the western grip. Many players, then as
now, find this change extremely difficult to perform and
those who finally made it, no longer came out on top.
This western grip has to be practiced from an early age.
Borg also struck the backhand with both hands, which
also required years of training.
Borg changed the tennis world with his topspin. Nowadays
topspin, forehand as well as backhand is the prerequisite
for any success in professional tennis.
So far only as an introduction.
The rackets he played are shown. The Bancroft (Bancroft
Björn Borg Personal) was the first in his professional
career, followed by the Donnay Allwood (Björn Borg
Donnay Allwood).
I was a frequent guest at the Aldiana Club in Fuerteventura
in the late 1980/90 years. Then I had the opportunity
to take tennis lessons at the Evercourt tennis school,
which was founded and organized by Reinhold Comprix.
He knew how to attract former top players as tennis
pros. Including Lennart Bergelin, captain of the Swedish
Davis Cup team from 1971 to 1976 and then longtime
coach of Borg.
At that time he was about seventy and still well trained
and in top shape. The training with him started with
ten rounds running around the tennis court. He led the
way. He counted in Swedish to drive us on.
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En, två, tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, åtta, nio och (and) tio !,
which is the ten. He put his whole personality into these
words and his love for the Swedish language broke
through.
I made friends with him because we had a lot to discuss.
He promoted the newly developed Bergelin Long String
racket which he used, where you could change the tension
of the racket strings by turning a screw at the end of
the handle. It was an invention by an aircraft engineer
named Herwig Fischer, who patented this idea in 1986
and was able to win Bergelin for marketing his idea.
The rackets were not fully developed technically (many
of them broke), so we found enough material for discussion.
I also told him about my tennis racket collection
and the widebody racket I had invented.
When I came back to Überlingen, I found a parcel with
two clubs that Bergelin had sent me. A Bancroft Personal
and a Donnay Allwood. Both signed by Borg on the
handle.
"To Siegfried, I hope to see you one day. Best wishes Björn
Borg”.
I have now examined these clubs more closely.
Borg was known to have a high racket wear. A source
estimated 600 a year, also taking into account broken
stringing. He preferred a high string tension of 37/38
kg, completely outside the norm, which was then 20 to
25 kg. This meant that the gut strings, only 1.35 mm in
diameter, reached the limit of their resilience. Some tore
already during stringing. It also happened that they broke
without ever having played with the racket. „Zeitonline”
recently published a paper on Borg on the Internet
with the apt title „at night it clicks”, which means
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that a string of a racket broke during the night. The frames
were also stressed up to their breaking point.
With both rackets I was able to determine the gut string
thickness with 1.35 mm in diameter. At that time the
thinner strings were 1.28 and the thicker 1.4 mm.
Most likely a VS Babolat, the most used but also very
expensive gut string at that time.
The weight of the two rackets was identical to 414 grams
(including the strings). The length of the Bancroft racket
is 69 cm with a balance of 33.5 cm messured from the
end of the handle. That was head heavy. The Donnay is
68.5 cm long with a balance of 33 cm (as a reminder: a
balance of 32.5 cm was considered balanced, 31 to 32 cm
as handle heavy). These numbers meant that he played
rackets that were heavy in weight and in addition to that
with a head heavy balance.
If you had enough power, you could accelerate the
ball incredibly. This resulted in an exhausting game. Both
racquets have an elongated leather wrapped handle, taking
into account the two-handed backhand. The frame
was of standard size conforming to the Dunlop Maxply
(midsize and oversize were not popular at the time or
were not yet on the market) laminated with six layers of
wood (mainly ash) and with a thin Vulcan fiber insert.
There is hardly any difference in the workmanship and
appearance between the two makes. Perhaps the Bancroft
frame was also made by Donnay, although the racket
shows „Made in the USA“ on the handle cap. The
wear on the left frame head indicates that Borg is righthanded.
The abrasions are minimal, which mostly indicates
that he had the club swing under control and rarely
brushed the ground. Since the abrasions on at least
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one of the racquets are visible on both sides, it can be
assumed that he also occasionally turned the racket and
did not play with only one side of the stringing face.
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Bancroft racket 1976
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Donnay Allwood Björn Borg Racket 1980
The layers of wood are poorly recognizable.
The black thin stripe is the Vulkan fiber insert.
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Ambidextrous backhand.
The Donnay logo "D" can be seen on the racket he used.
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1976