Tennis shorts for men first crossed a baseline back in the thirties, around the time British racquet wielder Bunny Austin shed his trousers in favor of a breezy pair of short pants. But hemlines wouldn't reach their most outlandish heights until four decades later, when Björn Borg emerged as the game's dominant player. The Swedish phenom took six French Open titles and five Wimbledon cups, then retired at the geriatric age of 26, but he is as well known now for his snug white britches and old-school headbands as he is for the lethal topspin of his looping ground strokes.

"I remember calling him Teen Angel," says Bud Collins, the NBC tennis commentator and veteran columnist for The Boston Globe, who first saw Borg play in Paris in 1973. "He had those flowing golden locks and cobalt-blue eyes that just made teenagers want to follow him everywhere. Later, we called him the Angelic Assassin."

After a brief attempt at a comeback in the early nineties, Borg mostly disappeared from public life—that is, until last year, when Bonhams auction house in London announced it was brokering a controversial sale of five of the champion's trophies and a pair of his beloved wooden racquets. (Borg's longtime rival, John McEnroe, is said to have talked him out of the deal.)

Another item of Borg's, a pair of his banded Fila court shorts, recently sold through the Las Vegas–based americanmemorabilia.com (though without Borg's participation). Fila has since reissued the line, and now offers the less risqué Limited Edition Santoro shorts. Diadora, another of Borg's former sponsors, retained a pair of his white and gold shoes for its archives, and even today continues to offer the model he favored.

"I was the first tennis player to wear fashionable clothes without really knowing it," says the historically reticent Borg, who served as the inspiration for a character in 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums and now oversees his own fashion label. "I am superstitious. There were certain styles for certain games. I wore the same shirts during Wimbledon, for instance." Note the white and blue pin-striped one in the above photo, snapped at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in 1981.

"Borg, Chris Evert, and Jimmy Connors were the ones who made the two-handed backhand de rigueur," says Collins. "The fact that he could adapt himself from playing in Europe on French clay, and then suddenly switch to Wimbledon grass—a much faster game—that's what makes Borg one of the greatest players of all time." Though let's not discount the gutsy bravado it took to pull off his disco-era gestalt.—SARA JAMES

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