In Brief : Doctors Doubt Borg Suicide Try

Doctors today cast doubt on press reports that five-time Wimbledon tennis champion Bjorn Borg tried to kill himself with a massive drug overdose after a tiff with his pop-star fiancee.

Borg was rushed to the hospital semi-conscious from the Milan home of singer Loredana Berte Tuesday morning and had his stomach pumped. Doctors said he had taken an overdose of Roipnol, a powerful sleeping pill.

But friends and Borg aides denied he had attempted suicide, saying he had taken a couple of pills to sleep after stomach pains following a restaurant meal.

Milan’s Corriere Della Sera, the second biggest newspaper in Italy, said today that Borg, 32, had tried to take his life after Berte, 38, threatened to leave him during an argument early Tuesday.

She called an ambulance after finding him ill in the morning, the paper said.

Like several other Italian papers, Corriere said Borg had taken 60 Roipnol pills.

Doctors raised severe doubts about this version because the drug is strictly controlled, because it is available only in packets of 30 and because Borg was out of the hospital within three hours.

Hospital staff who treated Borg refused to say how many pills he had swallowed or to comment on whether he tried to commit suicide. They said Borg, who retired from professional tennis in 1983, did not say how many he had taken.