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Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf (born June 14, 1969 in Mannheim,
Germany) is a former World No. 1 woman tennis player from Germany. She is
widely considered one of the greatest tennis players in history. Graf won
22 Grand Slam singles titles. In 1988, she became the first player to achieve
the "Golden Slam" – capturing all four Grand Slam titles and
the Olympic Gold Medal in the same year. She was ranked the Women's Tennis
Association's No. 1 player for a record 377 weeks and is the only player,
male or female, to have won all four Grand Slam tournaments (Wimbledon, the
US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open) at least four times apiece.
Graf is married to the former World No. 1 men's tennis player
Andre Agassi.
Biography
Early career
Steffi was introduced to tennis by her father Peter Graf,
a car and insurance salesman and aspiring tennis coach, who taught his three-year-old
daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began
practicing on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament
at five. She soon began winning junior tournaments with regularity, and in
1982 she won the European Championships 12s and 18s.
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October
1982 at Filderstadt, Germany; she lost 6-4, 6-0 to Tracy Austin (a two-time
US Open champion and former World No. 1 player). After the match, Austin
dismissed Graf's abilities, saying there were "hundreds" of kids
like her in the United States.
At the start of her first full professional season in 1983,
the 13-year-old Graf was ranked No. 124. She won no titles in the next three
years, but her game improved consistently and her ranking steadily climbed:
to No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she represented
West Germany in the tennis demonstration event at the Olympic Games in Los
Angeles and won the gold medal. Her schedule was closely controlled by her
father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out as many young
tennis stars had. In 1985, for instance, she played only 10 events leading
up to the US Open; whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini
of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also
kept a tight reign on Steffi's personal life. Social invitations on the tour
were often declined as Steffi's focus was kept very much on on-court play.
Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Slozil, Graf typically practiced
for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice
courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature,
made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement
in her play.
Graf finally won her first tour title in April 1986 at Hilton
Head, South Carolina, defeating Chris Evert in the final. She followed this
up with seven further tournament victories in 1986, and finished the year
ranked No. 3.
The main weapon in Graf's game was her powerful forehand,
which earned her the nickname "Fraulein Forehand"'. Over time,
Graf also developed the best slice backhand in the game, as well as a consistent
volley. She built her powerful and accurate serve up to 105 mph. She was
also extremely fast and athletic, chasing down balls that seemed unplayable.
Though she chose tennis as her career, she was also a top 400-metre runner
in her youth and could potentially have been a world-class athlete in that
event.
Breakthrough year
Graf's Grand Slam breakthrough came in 1987. She started
the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French
Open. In the final, she defeated the World No. 1 Martina Navratilova in an
epic battle, 6-4, 4-6, 8-6. Graf lost to Navratilova in the finals at Wimbledon
and the US Open later that year. But she won three more tournaments after
the French Open and did enough to claim the World No. 1 ranking from Navratilova
in August 1987, finishing with a 75-2 match record. She also helped West
Germany win the Fed Cup that year.
"Golden Slam"
1988 is widely considered to be the pinnacle of Graf's career.
She started out the year by winning the Australian Open, beating Evert in
straight sets in the final. Then at the French Open, she successfully defended
her title by routing Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0 in a 32-minute championship
match. Next came Wimbledon, where Navratilova had won six straight titles.
After a tight start to the final, Graf took control in the second set and
beat Navratilova 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, taking 12 of the last 13 games. She then
beat Sabatini in three sets in the US Open final to duplicate the feat of
winning all four Grand Slam singles titles in one year, previously achieved
by only two women – Maureen Connolly (in 1953) and Margaret Court (in
1970). But with tennis becoming a full medal sport at the 1988 Olympic Games
in Seoul, there was one more feat which Graf could add. And she duly defeated
Sabatini 6-3, 6-3 in the Olympic final to win the gold medal and achieve
what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her
only Grand Slam doubles title that year – at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini
– and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. She was named
the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
New challengers
Graf extended her Grand Slam winning streak to five events
at the Australian Open in 1989, where she comfortably beat Helena Sukova
in the final. The winning streak was ended at the 1989 French Open, where
a 17-year-old Spanish contender, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, beat her
in three sets to become the French Open's youngest-ever winner. However the
winning touch was quickly rediscovered as Graf beat Navratilova in three-set
finals at both Wimbledon and the US Open.
Few doubted that Graf would continue to dominate the women's
game for years to come when she beat Mary Joe Fernández in the final
of the 1990 Australian Open. But a new threat to her dominance broke through
at the 1990 French Open, where 16-year-old Monica Seles beat Graf in straight
sets to further lower the youngest-ever winner record. At Wimbledon, Graf
was unexpectedly beaten in the semifinals by Zina Garrison. She then reached
the US Open final, but lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Personal problems
contributed to her difficulties. In the middle of the year, her father Peter
was the subject of a paternity suit brought by a former Playboy model. The
difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a press
conference early in the tournament at Wimbledon, where Steffi broke down
in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down
any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked.
(Tests eventually proved Peter was not the baby's father.) Though Graf remained
the world No. 1 player at the end of 1990, her aura of invincibility had
been broken.
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties and loss
of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the
new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French
Open and US Open, and ending Graf's reign as World No. 1 in March. Seles
did not play at Wimbledon, where Graf won her only Grand Slam final of the
year following a difficult three-set battle with Sabatini.
1992 was another year when Graf had to play second fiddle
to Seles on the tour. Seles again won the Australian, French and US Opens.
Seles and Graf met in the French Open final, which Seles won in a very close
battle, taking the third set 10-8. They then met again in the Wimbledon final,
where Graf comprehensively proved that she was still the tour's strongest
grass court player, winning 6-2, 6-1. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona,
Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal.
However she did win her second Fed Cup with Germany.
All indications were that Seles continued to have the upper
hand at the start of the 1993, when she beat Graf in three sets in the final
of the Australian Open. However, a stunning turn of events changed everything
on April 30. During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva
at Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a member of
the crowd during a change-over. As Seles was rushed to hospital, her attacker
was taken into custody. It turned out that the assailant was Günter
Parche, a 38-year-old mentally unstable fan of Graf from eastern Germany,
who claimed that he committed the attack in order to help Graf reclaim the
No. 1 ranking, which Seles had held for the past two years. Graf visited
Seles in hospital the following day, but said little in public about the
attack. She reached the final in Hamburg that year. (Parche went on trial
twice for his attack on Seles but was never imprisoned.)
Second period of dominance
The psychological effects of the attack kept Seles away from
the tour for the next 28 months. With Seles off the scene, Graf won the remaining
three Grand Slam titles in 1993 and regained the top ranking. It is impossible
to determine if Graf would not have fully and completely experienced her
second period of resurgence if Parche had not attacked Seles.
The beginning of 1994 saw Graf beat Sánchez Vicario
in the final of the Australian Open and, for the second time in her career,
become the holder of all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously. However,
she lost to Mary Pierce in the semifinals at the French Open, and then was
shockingly eliminated in the first round at Wimbledon by the American Lori
McNeil. She reached the final of the US Open, where she lost to Sánchez
Vicario in three sets. (During the match Graf felt the first effects of a
bone spur in her back, a condition that plagued her for the remainder of
her career.)
Injury kept Graf out of the Australian Open in 1995. She
came back strongly to beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the
French Open and Wimbledon. The US Open was Seles' first Grand Slam after
returning from her long period away from the tour. Seles and Graf met in
the final, and Graf won a dramatic battle 7-6, 0-6, 6-3.
In personal terms, 1995 was a very difficult year for Steffi
as she was accused by the German authorities of tax evasion in the early
years of her career. In her defence, all she could say was that her father
Peter had been her financial manager, and all financial matters relating
to her earnings at the time had been under his control. As a result, Peter
Graf was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after
serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Steffi in 1997,
when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government
and an unspecified charity.
In 1996 Steffi again missed the Australian Open due to injury,
and then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year
before. In a classic French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez
Vicario, taking the third-set 10-8. She then had straight-sets wins against
Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final and Seles in the US Open final.
While known for her businesslike approach to the game, at
times Graf displayed a sense of humor. During a tight 1996 semifinal match
at Wimbledon against Kimiko Date, Graf was getting ready to serve when a
spectator yelled out "Steffi, will you marry me?". The spectators
at Centre Court burst into laughter. Steffi caught the ball she was bouncing,
turned toward the fan, and yelled "How much money do you have?".
Graf lost the set but won the match 6-2, 2-6, 6-3.
Final years on the tour
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries
– particularly to her knees and back. But this did not prevent her from
enjoying some final Grand Slam success as her career came to a close.
Injury problems caused Graf to miss much of the season in
1997. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win
a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years.
After missing almost half the season in 1998, she finished
that year ranked No. 9, her lowest ranking since 1984.
But Graf still had a few more dramatic moments up her sleeve
in 1999. At the French Open, she reached her first Grand Slam final for three
years and fought back from a set and a break down in the second set to defeat
the tennis world's new young star, Martina Hingis, in three sets, in what
she called her most satisfying Grand Slam victory. She then reached her ninth
Wimbledon final, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport.
With a series of injuries refusing to go away, Graf announced
her retirement from the tour in August 1999. She was ranked the World No.
3 at the time of her retirement.
During her career, Graf won 107 singles titles and 11 doubles
titles. Her 22 Grand Slam singles titles are second only to Margaret Court,
who won 24. Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277. Her singles
win-loss record was 900-115. She was ranked the No. 1 for a massive 377 weeks
(non-consecutive), including a record 186 consecutive weeks (from August
1987-March 1991) – longer than any other man or woman player.
After retirement from the tour
After a two-year courtship, Graf married Andre Agassi on
October 22, 2001 at his home in Las Vegas, with only their mothers as witnesses.
Their son Jaden Gil was born on October 26, six weeks prematurely. Their
daughter Jaz Elle was born on October 3, 2003.
Graf is the Founder and an active chairperson of 'Children
for Tomorrow', a non-profit foundation with the goal of implementing and
developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war
or other crises. She is also a WWF Ambassador. She appeared in "Otto,
der Außerfriesische", loves animals and is keen on fashion and
has created her own designs.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
in 2004.
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