# Borg vs McEnroe Rivalry: Tied 7–7, Ranked on 14 Lists
> Björn Borg and John McEnroe split their 14 matches 7–7. Fourteen rankings, from Wimbledon finals to the what-if list, pull the pair apart again.
*By YPB Team · Published September 26, 2026 · https://youpick.best/articles/borg-vs-mcenroe-ranked*
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Björn Borg and John McEnroe at the Rotterdam final, 8 April 1979, and 14 rankings where they meet again. Photos: Rob Croes / Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC0.
Björn Borg and John McEnroe played each other 14 times between 1978 and 1981 and finished level at seven wins each.1 Forty-five years ago this month, on 13 September 1981, McEnroe beat Borg in the US Open final. Borg walked out of the stadium before the trophy ceremony and never played another Grand Slam match.
The rivalry lasted less than three years. It still produced a feature film, a large part of Borg's 2025 memoir and, decades later, a second contest as opposing Laver Cup captains. The 14 rankings below pull the pair apart one question at a time.
> Borg and McEnroe split their matches evenly, and their careers split the same way: Borg kept Paris, Wimbledon and the early exit, McEnroe the weeks at No. 1, the doubles and 1984, and each is missing the one major the other owned.
## Serena Williams vs John McEnroe: the most iconic tennis players
The 20 Most Iconic Tennis Players of All Time is about fame rather than trophies. Björn Borg and John McEnroe are both on it, alongside Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Billie Jean King.
Borg's claim is image. He won 11 majors in seven years, six at Roland Garros and five in a row at Wimbledon, and his headband and pinstriped Fila shirt became the uniform of 1970s tennis.2
McEnroe's claim is noise and staying power. Beyond his seven singles majors he won nine in men's doubles and one in mixed.3 He never really left the public eye after retiring, moving into the commentary box, and his outbursts are quoted by people who never saw him play.
Serena Williams could fill this ranking alone. Set against her 23 majors, the Borg–McEnroe years read as a short and very bright chapter.
McEnroe against the one player on the list with a bigger footprint. Play it →
## Borg vs McEnroe among the great tennis rivalries
The greatest-rivalry ranking for men's tennis pits pairs against pairs. Borg vs McEnroe is one of eleven entries, next to Federer vs Nadal, Djokovic vs Nadal and Sampras vs Agassi.
McEnroe appears on it three times: against Borg, against Jimmy Connors and against Ivan Lendl. Borg appears once. McEnroe fought with most of his generation, while Borg had one great rival and retired soon after meeting him.
The case for this pair is compression: an even record and four major finals packed inside three years.
The contest also outlived their playing days. Borg captained Team Europe and McEnroe Team World at the Laver Cup for seven years, and Borg's side won five of them.4
Federer and Nadal have the volume on their side, and their 2008 Wimbledon final is the match most often set against 1980.
Fire and Ice against the rivalry that ran for fifteen years. Play it →
## Wimbledon 1980 and 1981: one final each
The 14 Greatest Wimbledon Finals of All Time holds both Borg–McEnroe finals, and the two men won one apiece.
The 1980 final is remembered for its fourth-set tiebreak. McEnroe saved five match points and took the tiebreak 18–16, then Borg won the fifth set 8–6 for his fifth straight title.1
McEnroe won the 1981 final in four sets and ended the streak. A sixth title in a row would have matched William Renshaw's record from the 1880s.2
The 2008 Federer–Nadal final is the usual rival to 1980. Borg's side of that debate points to the tiebreak; Nadal's side points to a finish played in near-darkness.
The 18–16 tiebreak against the final that ended in the dusk. Play it →
## Borg vs Jimmy Connors: the best player of the 1970s
The ranking of the greatest men's player of the 1970s is where Borg's case is strongest and McEnroe's is thinnest.
Borg won four French Opens and four Wimbledons between 1974 and 1979.
McEnroe qualifies on the last three seasons of the decade. He reached the 1977 Wimbledon semifinals as an 18-year-old qualifier and won his first US Open in 1979.
Jimmy Connors is the counterweight, with his long mid-decade run at No. 1, and Guillermo Vilas, Ilie Năstase and Arthur Ashe all won majors in the same years.
Borg and Connors, the two men who owned the middle of the decade. Play it →
## Ivan Lendl vs Borg: the best player of the 1980s
The 1980s ranking reverses the 1970s one. McEnroe finished four straight years, 1981 to 1984, as the year-end world No. 1.3
Borg's share of the decade covers eighteen months. He won the 1980 and 1981 French Opens and the 1980 Wimbledon, then stopped.
Ivan Lendl complicates McEnroe's case more than Borg does. Lendl won eight majors, and one of them came against McEnroe in Paris, in the match McEnroe most wants back.
Mats Wilander, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg all won majors before the decade was out, which makes the 1980s field deeper than the 1970s one.
Lendl, who outlasted both of them, against Borg, who left first. Play it →
## McEnroe's 1984 among the greatest seasons in tennis
The greatest single season in men's tennis history is a ranking of years, and it includes McEnroe's 1984 and Borg's 1979.
McEnroe went 82–3 in 1984, winning 96.5% of his matches, the best single-season record of the Open Era, and took Wimbledon and the US Open.3
Borg's 1979 was his second straight French Open and Wimbledon double in the same summer.
Rod Laver won all four majors in 1969, and Novak Djokovic won three in 2015. One of McEnroe's three losses in 1984 was the French Open final, the match that separates his year from theirs.
Three losses all year, and one of them in Paris. Play it →
## Borg vs McEnroe as teenage stars
The ranking of the greatest teenage stars in tennis holds both men, and on dates it favours Borg.
Borg won the 1974 French Open at 18 and his first Wimbledon two years later.
McEnroe's teenage moment came at Wimbledon in 1977, when he came through qualifying and reached the semifinals at 18. His first major followed at 20.
Boris Becker, who won Wimbledon at 17, and Michael Chang, who won the French Open at 17, beat them both on age alone.
A Paris champion at 18 against a Wimbledon semifinalist at 18. Play it →
## McEnroe vs Rafael Nadal: the Davis Cup
The ranking of the greatest Davis Cup players rewards loyalty, and McEnroe has plenty. He played for the United States across 12 years and won the cup five times: 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1992.3
Borg's record is shorter and harder to match. He led Sweden to its first Davis Cup in 1975, the first title for any nation outside Australia, Britain, France and the United States in 75 years of the event.2 He also strung together 33 consecutive singles wins, second on the competition's all-time list.5
McEnroe holds a second place of his own there, in doubles: he and Peter Fleming won 14 rubbers in a row.
Rafael Nadal, Roy Emerson and Nicola Pietrangeli make the field deeper than either man's era.
Five American titles against Spain's modern run. Play it →
## Borg vs Walt Frazier: the most stylish athletes of the 1970s and 1980s
The 17 Most Stylish Athletes of the 1970s and 1980s takes Borg and McEnroe out of tennis and sets them next to Walt Frazier, Joe Namath and Florence Griffith Joyner.
Borg's look was the headband, the long hair and the pinstriped Fila shirt. McEnroe's was louder: a red bandana over curly hair and Sergio Tacchini shirts.
Frazier, who wore mink coats and wide-brimmed hats around Madison Square Garden, is the reason neither tennis player has this list to himself.
A Fila headband against a Knicks guard in a fur coat. Play it →
## Borg vs McEnroe, the 2017 film, among tennis movies
The best tennis movie ranking includes Borg vs McEnroe, the 2017 drama about the 1980 Wimbledon final, with Sverrir Gudnason as Borg and Shia LaBeouf as McEnroe. It is the only film on the list named after a rivalry, so both men share one option.
The competition is recent and strong: King Richard, about the father of Venus and Serena Williams, Battle of the Sexes, about Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, and Challengers.
Gudnason and LaBeouf against Zendaya's love triangle. Play it →
## Björn Borg and the US Open he never won
The ranking of the best men's player never to win the US Open holds Borg alone of the two, and his four lost finals are what make the list. Borg reached four US Open finals, in 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1981, and lost every one.2
The losses came against two men: Jimmy Connors in 1976 and 1978, and McEnroe in 1980 and 1981, in five sets and then in four.
Gustavo Kuerten, Jim Courier and Michael Chang all won majors elsewhere. None of them has anything close to Borg's 11 to set against the gap.
McEnroe is ineligible: he won the US Open four times.
Four New York finals, no New York title. Play it →
## John McEnroe and the French Open
The mirror list asks which man is the best never to have won Roland Garros, and McEnroe is on it.
His closest miss was the 1984 final against Ivan Lendl. McEnroe won the first two sets, and Lendl came back to win 3–6, 2–6, 6–4, 7–5, 7–5.3
Borg is the opposite case. His six French Open titles stood as the men's record until Rafael Nadal.
Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg share the list with McEnroe, all of them serve-and-volley players who never solved the clay.
Two serve-and-volley champions who never won in Paris. Play it →
## Borg and the biggest what-if in men's tennis
The biggest what-if in men's tennis is a ranking of unfinished careers, and Borg's entry has nothing to do with injury.
Borg retired on 23 January 1983, aged 26.2 In Heartbeats, the memoir he published in 2025, he sums up the pressure of those years in six words: "Everyone wanted a piece of me."4
His brief comeback in the early 1990s, still with a wooden racket, brought no wins at tour level.
Juan Martín del Potro and Marat Safin qualify differently: their bodies gave out.
McEnroe has no entry. He kept playing into the 1990s, and the unfinished business in his career is one afternoon in Paris.
Wrists and knees against a man who simply chose to stop. Play it →
## McEnroe, Zidane and the most hot-headed athletes
The 17 Most Hot-Headed Athletes in Sports History holds McEnroe and not Borg, whose nickname at the time was Ice-Borg.
McEnroe's entry dates from 22 June 1981, the first day of Wimbledon. Playing Tom Gullikson, he disputed a call with umpire Edward James, shouted "You cannot be serious!" and later told the officials they were "the absolute pits of the world."6
Less than two weeks later he beat Borg in the final.
Mike Tyson, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Suárez keep him company from boxing and football, where the incidents ended in bans rather than point penalties.
A World Cup final headbutt against a Wimbledon first round. Play it →
## Fire and Ice, still level
Borg left at 26 holding the Paris titles McEnroe never won. McEnroe stayed and collected the years at No. 1 and the New York titles that Borg could not take. All 14 rankings are decided [one head-to-head matchup at a time](/articles/how-head-to-head-voting-works), which suits a pair who spent three years doing exactly that.
If your own tennis rivalry deserves a hearing, building a ranking for it takes a few minutes.
## More rankings, more angles
- [Navratilova vs Evert Head to Head: 80 Matches, 60 Finals](/articles/navratilova-vs-evert-ranked) — the women's rivalry that ran for sixteen years
- [Federer vs Nadal vs Djokovic: Who Is the Best? 16 Lists](/articles/federer-vs-nadal-vs-djokovic-ranked) — three men and 66 majors between them
- [Where Does Andre Agassi Rank All Time? 8 Majors, 12 Lists](/articles/andre-agassi-ranked-many-ways) — the showman who fell to 141st and climbed back
Sources
Wikipedia — Borg–McEnroe rivalry: head-to-head record, 1980 Wimbledon final score, 1981 US Open final and Borg's exit before the ceremony: en.wikipedia.org (checked 2026-09-26)
International Tennis Hall of Fame — Björn Borg: major titles by year, the Renshaw record, US Open finals, retirement date: tennisfame.com (checked 2026-09-26)
International Tennis Hall of Fame — John McEnroe: year-end No. 1 seasons, 1984 record, Davis Cup titles, 1984 French Open final: tennisfame.com (checked 2026-09-26)
Laver Cup — on Borg's memoir Heartbeats, the Laver Cup captaincies and the "Ice-Borg" persona: lavercup.com (checked 2026-09-26)
Davis Cup — player records, consecutive singles and doubles wins: daviscup.com (checked 2026-09-26)
ESPN — "You cannot be serious" at Wimbledon, 22 June 1981: espn.com (checked 2026-09-26)
