ATP Stockholm: Leo Borg surprises by winning a set against a top 40 man
Leo Borg (ATP No. 577) delivered a strong performance at the home tournament in Stockholm on Tuesday evening - and knocked off a sentence from top 40 man Tommy Paul.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit:
Oct 19, 2022, 09:43 am
Borg, 19 years young and son of the legendary Björn Borg, was in the main field of the 250 tournament via wild card. And fully justified it: The youngster lost to Tommy Paul, number 31 in the world and defending champion in Stockholm, but showed a courageous performance and even won a round.
In the end it was 7: 5, 4: 6, 1: 6 from Borg's point of view.
Borg played especially well in the first set and made a break straight away. He was still 3:5 behind, managed to equalize again and then took the serve from Paul again and served out. In contrast to Papa Björn, the Ice Borg, Leo showed a lot of emotions and also took the audience with him after winning the set. But in the end Paul won.
What was noticeable: Borg still lacks consistent length and punch, the one strong winning shot. Borg also still has room for improvement on the first serve: He only scored 51 percent of the points when the first service came - clearly not enough.
Impressive but his anticipation and also the overview in the small-small. And the backhand along the line, which he repeatedly used profitably. In front of his father, by the way.
Leo Borg in 2022 with great rise
Leo Borg had mainly played on the Juniors Tour in recent years, celebrated some successes here and made it to 15th place in the ranking.
After a few appearances at the regular ITF level in 2020 and 2021, he has been playing here since this year, most recently he was in the final of the 25,000 events in Cairo. In the ATP ranking, Borg has improved from 2,216th place at the beginning of the year to 577th place.
Curious: His appearance in Stockholm was his second in an ATP main draw after last year in the same place - even then the opponent was called Tommy Paul! Which led a Twitter user to make a wonderful comment that in Borg's mind, ATP could probably stand for "Association of Tommy Paul".
Leo Borg: Top 50 in three years as a goal
Borg himself was satisfied with his game and his development. "From the baseline, my game has become more difficult for others. The mental side is much better and more stable," he said . "My dream is to get in the top 100, top 10 as soon as possible... I hope to be in the top 50 in three years. I have high goals and I will do whatever it takes to to get to the next level and become a top player. It's a huge effort to get there but I'm ready to give it my all. I hope it's going to be a good journey."