Björn Borg disappointed about Swedish tennis, says Alcaraz will become "king of tennis"

Legendary tennis player Björn Borg visited Barcelona this week to receive a tribute at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, a tournament he won 50 years ago - although he left before the tribute, scheduled before the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Ethan Quinn, due to personal reasons.

Borg, winner of 11 Grand Slams, led a great generation of Swedish tennis players, especially on clay courts, like Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Joakim Nyström... However, the representation of Sweden in world tennis has dropped dramatically, and it makes Borg "disappointed", as he mentioned in an interview with RTVE.

"We had like five or six players at the top ten many years ago. Today we have problems. We slowly try to build, in the clubs in Sweden, what we think tennis should be. Federation is working really hard. I think we don't have too much money involved in tennis. Other sports are coming along in the world, but we try really hard to bring back good players in tennis in the world."

"I'm as disappointed as you with, if you say, Swedish tennis", said to the Spanish reporter, adding that in Spain there are "more solutions to many things that we don't have in Sweden".

Today, there are only two men Swedish players in ATP Top 500 and two women in WTA Top 500, the best being placed 258 and 298 respectively. One of them, World No. 496, is Björn's son Leo Borg, who played in Barcelona but lost 5-7, 6-7 to Jacob Fearnlay.

Björn Borg praises Carlos Alcaraz, thinks he'll become the "king of tennis"

Naturally, Borg was also asked about Rafa Nadal, who described him as the best player mentally, and Carlos Alcaraz, whom he thinks "will achieve what Rafa did": "He has the right mentality, he can play on any kind of surface. I hope he wins at least one Grand Slam, I'm going to watch him because I like the guy", adding that he thinks he will become "the king of tennis".