Steffi Graf, Tennis Player, - Biography,
German tennis player.
Height 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight 64 kg
(141 lb)
Born, June 14, 1969, Mannheim, Germany
Turned
Pro 1982 Retired 1999
Plays Right; One-handed backhand
Career Prize Money
$21,895,277 (1st in all-time rankings)
Results in singles
Career record:
902-115 Career titles: 107
Highest ranking: No. 1 (August 17, 1987)
Grand
Slam highlights
Australian Open W (1988, 1989, 1990, 1994)
French Open W
(1987, 1988, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999)
Wimbledon W (1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993,
1995, 1996)
U.S. Open W (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1996)
Results in doubles
Career
record: 173-72
Career titles: 11
Highest ranking: No. 5 (November 21, 1988)
Stefanie
Maria Graf is a former World No. 1 ranked female tennis player from Germany. She
is generally considered to be one of the greatest female tennis players of all
time. Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, more than any other player - male
or female - has won since the start of the open era. (Margaret Court won the most
(24) but only 11 of them were in the open era).
In 1988, Graf became the only
player, male or female, to win the "Golden Slam" - capturing all four
Grand Slam singles titles & an Olympic gold medal in the same year. She was
ranked the Women's Tennis Association's No. 1 player for a record 377 weeks -
the longest of any player, male or female, since rankings began - & is the
only player to have won all four Grand Slam singles tournaments (Wimbledon, the
U.S. Open, the French Open & the Australian Open) at least four times each.
A
notable feature of Graf's game was her versatility across all playing surfaces,
exemplified by her winning six French Open singles titles (second to Chris Evert)
& seven Wimbledon singles titles (third behind Martina Navratilova & Helen
Wills Moody). She is the only singles player, male or female, to have achieved
a true Grand Slam across all three types of tennis courts, as the other five true
singles Grand Slams occurred when the Australian & U.S. Opens were still played
on grass. Graf reached thirteen consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, from the
French Open in 1987 through the French Open in 1990, winning nine of them. She
played in 36 Grand Slam singles tournaments from the 1987 French Open through
the 1996 U.S. Open, reaching the finals 29 times & winning 21 titles. Her
French Open title in 1999 left her with a career total of 22 Grand Slam singles
titles, second only to Margaret Court's 24.
Graf retired in 1999, giving her
the distinction of being the highest ranked player to retire.
Graf is married
to the former World No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi.
The main weapon
in Graf's game was her powerful forehand, which earned her the nickname "Fräulein
Forehand". Over time, Graf also developed a very effective slice backhand,
as well as a consistent volley. She built her powerful & accurate serve up
to 180 km/h, & at one point, hers would be the fastest serve in the tournaments
she would play. She was also very fast & athletic, chasing down balls that
seemed unplayable. Her footwork was unique & instantly recognizable. Her powerful
strokes, along with those of Monica Seles, are thought by some to have started
the current trend of power baseline tennis that is common among women tennis players
today.
Steffi was introduced to tennis by her father Peter Graf, a car &
insurance salesman & 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 & played in her first tournament at five. She
soon began winning junior tournaments with regularity, & in 1982 she won the
European Championships 12s & 18s.
Graf played in her first professional
tournament in October 1982 at Stuttgart, Germany. She lost her first round match
6-4, 6-0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time U.S. Open champion & former World No.
1 player. Austin remarked of the then-thirteen year old Graf that "there
are hundreds of players like her in America." Twelve years later, Graf defeated
Austin 6-0, 6-0 during a second round match in Indian Wells, California, which
was their second & last match against each other.
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 &
her ranking steadily climbed: to No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, & No. 6 in
1985. In 1984, she represented West Germany in the tennis demonstration event
at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles & 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 rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour
were often declined as Graf's focus was kept very much on practicing & match
play. Working with her father & 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 & 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 & finished the year ranked
No. 3.
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 & the US Open later
that year. But she won four more tournaments after the French Open, including
the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships at Madison Square Garden, &
did enough to claim the World No. 1 ranking from Navratilova in August 1987, finishing
the year with a 75-2 match record. She also helped West Germany win the Fed Cup
that year.
Olympic medal record
Women's Tennis
Gold 1988 Seoul Singles
Bronze 1988 Seoul Doubles
Silver 1992 Barcelona Singles
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 (6-1, 7-6) 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 & 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) & Margaret
Court (in 1970). With tennis becoming a full medal sport at the 1988 Olympic Games
in Seoul, Graf defeated Sabatini 6-3, 6-3 in the Olympic final to win the gold
medal & achieve what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam." Graf
also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year - at Wimbledon partnering
Sabatini - & picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. She was named
the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
Graf extended her Grand
Slam winning streak to five events at the Australian Open in 1989, where she easily
defeated Helena Sukova in the final. The winning streak ended at the 1989 French
Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three
sets. Graf, however, defeated Martina Navratilova in three-set finals at both
Wimbledon & the U.S. Open & in four sets in the final of the season-ending
Virginia Slims Championships.
In 1990, most believed Graf would dominate the
women's game for years to come when she beat Mary Joe Fernández in the
final of the 1990 Australian Open, making it her eighth Grand Slam championship
in the last nine she contested. Major personal issues arose, however, when Graf's
father Peter was the subject of a fraudulent 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 Graf
broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut
down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked.
The blackmail scheme eventually failed when DNA tests proved Peter was not the
baby's father. In the same year at the French Open, 16-year-old Monica Seles beat
Graf in straight sets. At Wimbledon, Graf was unexpectedly beaten in the semifinals
by Zina Garrison. She then reached the U.S. Open final, but lost in straight sets
to Gabriela Sabatini. Graf remained the top ranked player at the end of 1990,
even though she did not win a Grand Slam event after the blackmail scandal broke.
A
mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, & 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, & U.S. Open, &
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.
Still struggling with
injuries, in 1992 Graf won only one Grand Slam event, Wimbledon. Because of injuries,
she did not compete at the Australian Open. Seles & Graf met in the French
Open final, which Seles won in a very close battle, taking the third set 10-8.
Seles & she met again in the Wimbledon final, with Graf winning 6-2, 6-1,
a record for the most lop-sided defeat in Wimbledon history of the number one
ranked player.[citation needed] Graf won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping
Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Sánchez Vicario 6-4, 6-2.
At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final
& claimed the silver medal. At the U.S. Open, Graf was upset in a quarterfinal
by Sánchez Vicario 7-6(5), 6-3.
In 1993, Seles beat Graf in three sets
in the final of the Australian Open. The burgeoning rivalry between them was then
cut short. During a quarterfinal match between Seles & Magdalena Maleeva in
Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill Günter
Parche He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the number
one ranking. Graf later visited Seles at the hospital. Almost two years elapsed
before Seles competed again.
Some wonder whether Seles would have remained
number one had she not been attacked. Conversely, some wonder whether Seles would
have become the top ranked player if Graf not been plagued by the blackmail scandal
& injuries from 1990 through 1992. Head-to-head, Graf never had a losing record
versus Seles at any point in her career, & prior to the year the black mail
scandal first broke, Graf was undefeated versus Seles in three encounters. Seles,
however, won four of the seven matches they played from 1990 through 1993, including
a 3-1 advantage over Graf in Grand Slam tournaments. Graf retired with a 10-5
lifetime record over Seles, including a 6-4 winning record versus Seles in Grand
Slam singles tournaments.
Graf won three of four Grand Slam events in 1993,
& in the beginning of 1994, Graf beat Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the
final of the Australian Open. For the second time in her career, Graf was the
holder of all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously. She lost, however, to Mary
Pierce in the semifinals of the French Open & then was surprisingly eliminated
in the first round at Wimbledon by the American Lori McNeil. Graf reached the
final of the U.S. Open, where she lost to Sánchez Vicario in three sets.
Injury
kept Graf out of the Australian Open in 1995. She came back to beat Sánchez
Vicario in the finals of both the French Open & Wimbledon. The U.S. Open was
Seles' first Grand Slam event after the 1993 attack. Seles & Graf met in the
final, with Graf winning 7-6, 0-6, 6-3. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman
Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Tour Championships.
In
personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf as she was accused by German
authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she
stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, & all financial matters
relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. As a result,
Peter 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 & an unspecified
charity.
In 1996, Graf again missed the Australian Open due to injury &
then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before.
In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking
the third-set 10-8. Graf then had straight-sets wins against Sánchez Vicario
in the Wimbledon final & Seles in the U.S. Open final. Graf also won her fifth
& final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis.
The
last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries; particularly to her knees
& back. Injury problems caused Graf to miss much of the season in 1997. She
lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis & 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.
At
the 1999 French Open, she reached her first Grand Slam final in three years &
fought back from a set & two breaks down in the second set to defeat the tennis
world's new young star, #1 ranked Martina Hingis, in three sets. She also became
the first player in the Open era to beat the #1, #2, & #3 world ranked players
in the same Grand Slam tournament by defeating then #2 ranked Lindsay Davenport
in the quarterfinals & #3 ranked Monica Seles in the semifinals. She then
reached her ninth Wimbledon final, where she lost in straight sets to Lindsay
Davenport.
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 & 11 doubles titles. Her 22 Grand Slam singles
titles are second only to Margaret Court, who won 24. Graf won 7 singles titles
at Wimbledon, 6 singles titles at the French Open, 5 singles titles at the US
Open, & 4 singles titles at the Australian Open. She is the only person to
have won at least 4 singles titles at each Grand Slam event. Her overall record
in 56 Grand Slam events was 282-34 (89 percent) (87-10 at the French Open, 75-8
at Wimbledon, 73-10 at the US Open, & 47-6 at the Australian Open). Her career
prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277. Her singles win-loss record was 902-115
(89 percent). She was ranked No. 1 for 377 weeks (non-consecutive), including
a record 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987-March 1991) - longer than any
other man or woman player.
With her father reining in her personal life until
the Graf tax scandal in 1995, Graf often declined social invitations & made
few friends on tour. Soon after retiring she made headlines off the court for
dating Andre Agassi. They married in October 2001 with only their mothers as witnesses.
Four days later Steffi gave birth, six weeks prematurely, to their son Jaden Gil
(named for Andre's longtime trainer Gil Reyes). Their daughter, Jaz Elle, was
born in October 2003.Grand Slam singles finals
Wins (22)
Year Championship
Opponent in Final Score in Final
1987 French Open Martina Navratilova 6-4,
4-6, 8-6
1988 Australian Open Chris Evert 6-1, 7-6
1988 French Open (2)
Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0
1988 Wimbledon Martina Navratilova 5-7, 6-2, 6-1
1988
U.S. Open Gabriela Sabatini 6-3, 3-6, 6-1
1989 Australian Open (2) Helena Suková
6-4, 6-4
1989 Wimbledon (2) Martina Navratilova 6-2, 6-7, 6-1
1989 U.S.
Open (2) Martina Navratilova 3-6, 7-5, 6-1
1990 Australian Open (3) Mary Joe
Fernández 6-3, 6-4
1991 Wimbledon (3) Gabriela Sabatini 6-4, 3-6, 8-6
1992
Wimbledon (4) Monica Seles 6-2, 6-1
1993 French Open (3) Mary Joe Fernández
4-6, 6-2, 6-4
1993 Wimbledon (5) Jana Novotná 7-6, 1-6, 6-4
1993
U.S. Open (3) Helena Suková 6-3, 6-3
1994 Australian Open (4) Arantxa
Sánchez Vicario 6-0, 6-2
1995 French Open (4) Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario
7-5, 4-6, 6-0
1995 Wimbledon (6) Arantxa Sánchez Vicario 4-6, 6-1, 7-5
1995
U.S. Open (4) Monica Seles 7-6, 0-6, 6-3
1996 French Open (5) Arantxa Sánchez
Vicario 6-3, 6-7, 10-8
1996 Wimbledon (7) Arantxa Sánchez Vicario 6-3,
7-5
1996 U.S. Open (5) Monica Seles 7-5, 6-4
1999 French Open (6) Martina
Hingis 4-6, 7-5, 6-2
Runner-ups (9)
Year Championship Opponent in Final
Score in Final
1987 Wimbledon Martina Navratilova 7-5, 6-3
1987 U.S. Open
Martina Navratilova 7-6, 6-1
1989 French Open Arantxa Sánchez Vicario
7-6, 3-6, 7-5
1990 French Open (2) Monica Seles 7-6, 6-4
1990 U.S. Open
(2) Gabriela Sabatini 6-2, 7-6
1992 French Open (3) Monica Seles 6-2, 3-6,
10-8
1993 Australian Open Monica Seles 4-6, 6-3, 6-2
1994 U.S. Open (3)
Arantxa Sánchez Vicario 1-6, 7-6, 6-4
1999 Wimbledon (2) Lindsay Davenport
6-4, 7-5
1986 "Most Improved Player" WTA TOUR
1987-90 "Player
of the Year" WTA TOUR
1993-96 "Player of the Year" WTA TOUR
1996,
98-99 "Most Exciting Player of the Year" WTA TOUR
1987-90 "World
Champion" ITF award.
1993, 95-96 "World Champion" ITF award
1988
"BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year"
1989 "Associated
press female athlete of the year"
1999 "Prince of Asturias Award"
one of the most important awards of Spain named after the apparent heir of Spain,
Prince Felipe
1999 "Germany Television Award"
1999 "Athlete
of the Century" for the category "female athlete in ballsports"
by IOC panel
1999 "Female Athlete of the Year" by German TV broadcaster
ARD
1999 "Female Sports Award of the last Decade" by ESPY, Las Vegas
1999
"Olympic Medal of Honor" granted by Dr. Antonio Samaranch, President
of the IOC, Lausanne
2002 "Medal of Honor" decorated by the Prime
Minister of Graf's home state Baden-Württemberg, Mr. Erwin Teufel
Steffi
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004.
·
Steffi is the only female to be selected for Forbes Top-30 "Most recognizable
& marketable athletes" list in 1995.
· Selected for "European
Heroes" in 2004 by TIME Magazine.
· Voted "Germans greatest
role model" by TV14 magazine.
· Voted "Most admirable German
woman" by Amica magazine.
· Voted "Germany's Sportswoman of
the Century" in 1999 by the German press.
· Steffi is the only
person to have won the 'Golden Slam' (1988)
· Steffi is the first German
to win the Spain's 'Prince of Asturias' award.
At the 1992 Wimbledon champions
banquet, she & husband-to-be Andre Agassi showed no interest in one another.
However, in a 2006 Sports Illustrated piece, Agassi - who claimed he had been
secretly pining for Graf as far back as 1990 - said that officials would not allow
him to dance with her, which was a Wimbledon tradition.
In the first season
episode "The Crackpots & these Women" of The West Wing, President
Bartlet brings in a ringer for a basketball game with the senior staff. Toby Ziegler
mentions that it was like the time he & C.J. were playing doubles with him
once & he brought in someone he claimed worked at the American Consulate who
(despite his denial) was in fact Steffi Graf. Hugh Laurie sang a song about her
on the show A Bit of Fry & Laurie.
This site was written in February 2007
Some pictures of Steffi Graf, not spelt Steffi Graff, or Stefi Graf, or Steffi Graff
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