Borg Wins $12,500 in Damages From Suit Against Magazine

Five-time Wimbledon tennis winner Bjorn Borg won a legal victory today when a district court awarded him $12,500 in damages from a magazine which published an article alleging he was a drug addict.

Borg, 33, had sued the Swedish satirical magazine Z over the article, which was based on an interview with a former girlfriend, Jannike Bjorling, who claimed Borg routinely used cocaine.

“The character and circulation of the information is such that Bjorn Borg, through the publication of it, must have suffered. . . . The court estimates and sets the damages at 75,000 crowns ($12,500),” the court ruling read. Borg had sued for $57,000.

The truth of the article was never discussed in court, which contended the case concerned only whether the magazine was entitled to publish the article.

The ruling reaffirmed the jury’s opinion last week that the magazine was guilty of defamation. Court spokeswoman Catarina Collin said the former editor-in-chief of the magazine also had been fined $830.

The report, published last October, quoted Bjorling as saying Borg introduced her to cocaine after they met in 1984. Borg, who quit tennis seven years ago at the height of his career, denies having used drugs.