Background
Steffi Graf was born Stephanie Maria Graf on June 14, 1969, in Mannheim, West Germany (now Germany), to Peter Graf, a car-and-insurance salesman, and Heidi Graf.
1993
Church Rd, Wimbledon, London SW19 5AG, United Kingdom
German tennis player Steffi Graf pictured in action during progress to reach and win the final of the Ladies' Singles tournament at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London.
1993
Church Rd, Wimbledon, London SW19 5AG, United Kingdom
Steffi Graf of Germany makes a backhand return during the Women's Singles Final of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship against Jana Novotna on July 3, 1993 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon in London, England.
1988
Seoul, South Korea
Steffi Graf with her Summer Olympics Gold Medal
1993
New York City, New York, United States
Athlete Steffi Graf attends the United States Open Tennis Tournament on September 11, 1993 at Flushing Meadows Park in New York City.
1993
Melbourne, Australia
Steffi Graf of Germany serves to Monica Seles during their Women's Singles Final of the Australian Open on January 30, 1993 in Flinders Park, Melbourne, Australia.
1993
7300 Crandon Blvd, Key Biscayne, FL 33149, United States
Tennis player Steffi Graf of Germany hits a return during the Lipton International Players Championship circa 1993 at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Florida.
1993
7300 Crandon Blvd, Key Biscayne, FL 33149, United States
Tennis player Steffi Graf of Germany hits a return during the Lipton International Players Championship circa 1993 at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Florida.
1993
Church Rd, Wimbledon, London SW19 5AG, United Kingdom
German tennis player Steffi Graf pictured in action during progress to reach and win the final of the Ladies' Singles tournament at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London.
1993
Church Rd, Wimbledon, London SW19 5AG, United Kingdom
Steffi Graf of Germany makes a backhand return during the Women's Singles Final of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship against Jana Novotna on July 3, 1993 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon in London, England.
1993
Flushing Meadow - Corona Park, Flushing, NY 11368, United States
Steffi Graf of Germany sets up to hit a backhand return during the Women's 1993 United States Open Tennis Championships at the USTA Tennis Center in the Queens borough of New York City.
1997
Steffi Graf with her fans
1997
Steffi Graf and Janette Husarova
1997
Steffi Graf
1997
Australia
Steffi Graf at the Australian Open
1997
Steffi Graf at German Open
1998
Steffi Graf hits in the match against German opponent Andrea Glass at the Faber Women's Grand Prix.
1998
Steffi Graf with her partner Barbara Rittner on February 16, 1998 at the Faber Grand Prix.
1999
Steffi Graf at the French Open
2000
5 Chome-1-16 Higashimatabeecho, Minami Ward, Nagoya, Aichi 457-0833, Japan
Steffi Graf plays an exhibition match with Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall (now Nippon Gaishi Hall) on February 7, 2000. It was held as a part of her "Farewell World Tour."
2009
London, United Kingdom
Steffi Graf at Wimbledon
2010
Steffi Graf at a charity tennis tournament in 2010.
Steffi Graf in action
Australia
Steffi Graf in action
Steffi Graf in action
Steffi Graf in action
2 Avenue Gordon Bennett, 75016 Paris, France
Steffi Graf of Germany during her Women's Singles Final match against Mary Joe Fernandez at the French Open Tennis Championship at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France.
Young Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf in her childhood
Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award
Steffi Graf was born Stephanie Maria Graf on June 14, 1969, in Mannheim, West Germany (now Germany), to Peter Graf, a car-and-insurance salesman, and Heidi Graf.
Shortly after the birth of Graff's brother Michael, her family continued to live in Mannheim, where she was born. The bond between Steffi and her father was formed early as Peter encouraged and developed his daughter's natural talent for tennis, particularly the powerful forehand - a high, chopping downward stroke - that would become her signature on courts around the world. Some said Peter was pushing Steffi too hard and was preventing her from forming the friendships of a normal childhood by whisking her off to practice while other children were playing together. Further concerns were voiced when Peter placed ten-year-old Steffi under the tutelage of her first professional coach, Boris Breskvar, at a state-financed tennis program in Bruhl. In 1982, Peter announced that Steffi would be leaving school to play professionally.
Growing up, Graf was not one to be consumed by leisure activities. Graf's parents withdrew her from the eighth grade in 1982, when she was 13, after she became the second-youngest player in the history of tennis to achieve an international ranking (no. 214 in WITA rankings). She began competing in more tournaments and then, in 1984, traveled to Los Angeles to compete in the Summer Olympics. She walked away from that competition with the gold.
Graf's first year as a professional was tough. She did not win any tournament, though she did make it to the semifinals of the U.S. Open, losing to Martina Navratilova. But then in 1986, she won 24 straight matches, quickly moving up to the number three ranking in the world.
But Graf was not satisfied. She wanted a Grand Slam, and therefore began a rigorous training program that included running, weightlifting, jumping rope, and more and more tennis. She made her hard work pay off, and in 1987 won the French open against Navratilova (6-4, 4-6, 8-6). At that time, in French Open history, she was the youngest winner ever, and with her victory moved her ranking up to number two in the world.
Soon she moved up to number one, following her many other victories that year. By the season's end, Graf had lost only two of seventy-two matches, winning an amazing 11 of the 13 tournaments she played in.
Winning all four Grand Slam events in one year (which is also called winning the Grand Slam) is an amazing feat in tennis. The difficulty of winning the Grand Slam is a legend. Graf achieved this feat in 1988, becoming only the third woman ever to complete the honor. She started her run with a victory over Evert in the Australian Open (6-1, 7-6), and then beat Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0 in the finals of the French Open. This was the first time that a player had completely shut out an opponent in a Grand Slam final. In fact, Graf lost only 20 games throughout the tournament, and, at its conclusion, actually apologized to the crowd for winning so easily.
The next tournament in Graf's Grand Slam tour was Wimbledon, where she looked to a showdown with Navratilova, who had won the previous eight Wimbledon championships. The grass at Wimbledon was Navratilova's preferred surface, and many people, in spite of Graf's amazing run, were expecting Navratilova to come out on top.
And indeed, it looked that way at first, as Graf lost the first set 7-5. But she persevered and ended up winning 12 of the last 13 games of the match, defeating Navratilova in the final two sets, 6-2, 6-1. It was almost anti-climactic later that season when she won her fourth Grand Slam victory in the U.S. Open, and then followed that phenomenal feat with a second gold medal only days later at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
In between the major championships she amassed singles tournament victories as if they were just another stop on her way to becoming one of the greatest tennis players in history. In 1991, however, she fell to number two in the world rankings after an amazing 188 weeks at the top. She lost her ranking to Monica Seles, which meant more to her than having the record stopped. She did not like losing, and she was frustrated at having not won a Grand Slam event in over a year and a half.
Graf soon ended her dry spell with a 1991 Wimbledon victory, defeating Gabriela Sabatini 6-4, 3-6, 8-6. In 1992, Graf lost to Seles in the finals of the French Open, but regained her composure and defeated Seles handily at Wimbledon (6-2, 6-1).
Seles again defeated Graf in the finals of the 1993 Australian Open, and it appeared that Graf would remain at number two for a while. Then, in a bizarre and tragic occurrence, Seles, seated courtside at a German tennis match, was stabbed in the back. The authorities learned that the perpetrator was one of Graf's fans, and he claimed later that he had done so in order to restore Graf to her number one ranking.
The news of Seles's attack shocked Graf, as well as the tennis world. Graf was the first person to see Seles in the hospital. Seles remained away from tennis for over two years, and - though it was an unfortunate incident that put her back on top - Graf in fact did regain the number one ranking by dominating the last half of 1993, winning the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. But she was distraught over Seles's stabbing. Graf went on in 1994 to win the Australian open, and then - suffering from allergies - lost a major upset to Mary Pierce in the semifinals of the French Open.
As the 1994 season wound down, Graf found injuries to her back and leg slowing her down, and after defeats in several major tournaments, decided to take some time off, losing her number one ranking to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. But she returned to form in 1995, winning the Lipton Championships, then winning the French Open against Sanchez Vicario 7-5, 4-6, 6-0 (her twenty-fifth win in a row). She took another win over Sanchez Vicario at Wimbledon in 1995, in a match that saw a grueling 20-minute, 32-point game, after which Graf finally broke serve and won four quick points.
By the end of 1995, Graf won the United States Open and then went on to win Wimbledon the next season for her twentieth Grand Slam title. Injuries to her back and left knee soon forced her to take more unwanted time off. In a span of only a few years, the injuries mounted. She was hampered by knee surgery (causing her to miss much of 1997), and then an ankle injury in 1998 dropped her to number 9 in the world rankings.
In her last year on tour, however, Graf came back with a great victory, perhaps her sweetest, when she defeated Martina Hingis in the French Open. Hingis had been claiming that Graf was no longer a viable threat in the Grand Slams. Steffi Graf retired from tennis in 1999.
In late 1999 and early 2000, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany, and South Africa. In February 2000, she played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets.
In July 2005, Steffi Graf competed in the tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team.
In 2008, Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. In 2010, Steffi participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and her husband, Andre Agassi, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King.
Steffi Graf was a Christian. But in 1997, she left the Catholic Church for "personal reasons."
Graf and her husband, Andre Agassi, each donated $14,800 to the Reid Victory Fund in 2009, a committee for then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Graf supports children who have been traumatized by war or other crises. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998.
Quotations:
"You can't measure success if you have never failed. My father has taught me that if you really do want to reach your goals, you can't spend any time worrying about whether you're going to win or lose. Focus only on getting better."
"I never look back, I look forward."
"You can have a certain arrogance, and I think that's fine, but what you should never lose is the respect for the others."
"As long as I can focus on enjoying what I'm doing, having fun, I know I'll play well."
"When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win."
"Age, what is it? It's not a figure that has ever meant anything to me."
"It doesn't hurt to lose my crown, it hurts to lose."
"If you watch Rafael Nadal play tennis, you can only respond with amazement and great admiration. He is an incredible athlete with so much discipline, so much concentration and someone who likes to put a lot of passion into every point. Words fail to come out of me to describe his game appropriately. I've rarely seen anyone who approaches a ball with so much attention. With such passion and joy that it makes great fun to watch him. With him, you can associate everything that makes tennis so beautiful."
"I have always been guided by striving to show the best that I could. That is what kept me going in tennis and it is the same now."
"There is no relief at it being over. There is the joy of winning it."
"My big dream was to work as a photographer for 'National Geographic.'"
"I don't like the word 'businesswoman.' Perhaps 'committed mother' would be the best description."
"Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed, but then I wouldn't have been the same player."
"You cannot compare your athletic achievement to the importance of children and giving them a safe environment in which to grow up and enjoy life."
"I think it takes people to get to know you and the recognition comes over time."
"If you go to a big city anywhere in the world and you need a doctor, just ask me. I can tell you who's good and who's bad. I've even considered writing a guidebook."
"Tennis has always been a big challenge for me and to be able to play that kind of tennis - well, only tennis can produce these feelings for me."
"I suppose it's amazing how quick life goes by when you have children."
"Grass is a surface I have always loved, Wimbledon is a tournament I have always loved."
"I never hanker after the past - I prefer to devote myself to new tasks."
"It shifted attention away from that and I've never been someone who liked the attention from the media anyway."
"I've been taught very early on that if you want to win a tournament you've got to beat anybody, and hopefully I play well and enjoy it."
"I am a person who sticks to her word."
Steffi came off as cold and sometimes emotionless. She was shy but liked to laugh. Her sense for fashion was tasteful and conservative, yet sleek and athletic. She also had absolute focus, quiet concentration and total professionalism.
Physical Characteristics:
Steffi Graf is 1.76 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in) tall and weighs 64 kg (141 lbs). She has blonde hair and blue eyes.
Graf became racked with knee and back injuries between 1997 and 1999.
Quotes from others about the person
Billie Jean King: "Steffi is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time."
From 1992 to 1999, Staffi dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi in 1999. They married on October 22, 2001. The couple has two children - son Jaden Gil and daughter Jaz Elle.