Steffi Graf Still Has Too Much Notoriety

‎Steffi Graf Still Has Too Much Notoriety

It was expected that the tennis icon would maintain a quiet profile once her career ended when she announced her retirement from competition more than 20 years ago. However, even it could be an underestimate of her 21st-century activities.

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Tracy Austin did a double take. It was the spring of 2019, those halcyon pre-COVID-19 days, and Austin, once the No.1–ranked player on the WTA Tour, sat in the stands at the USC tennis facility. There to watch her son Brandon, then a junior, play a match, she glanced over and saw a familiar face, a genial, clean-shaven middle-aged man attired in a USC Trojans shirt. He was trailed by his blond wife—wearing more elegant attire and a tight smile. She, too, was a familiar face. “It was out of context, so it took a second,” says Austin. “But I’m like, ‘Wait, is that Andre and Steffi?”

It was, and Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf—possibly the most successful sports couple in history—had good reason to be on campus that day. Their son, Jaden, a cunning right-handed pitcher with Major League potential, had just committed to USC, and the family had come to watch his future teammates play an afternoon game. However, Jaden’s parents, who had once dominated the sport with 30 major singles titles between them (Mom won 22–8), were drawn to the nearby tennis facility, and Agassi settled in and watched. “You know how Andre is and how his tennis brain works,” says Austin. “Immediately he started breaking down Brandon’s game.”

And his spouse? “She was just the sweetest,” remembers Austin, whose career coincided with Graf’s for a brief period of time. But Steffi—you know how she is. She may have gone to the burger truck in stealth to get lunch for everyone.

Over the following few years, Graf and Agassi would visit Troy numerous times more. Even though Jaden didn’t choose the same hand-eye sport as his parents, he is nonetheless a very good athlete. As a sophomore, he defeated rival UCLA this past spring. After his head coach left, he just recently signed up for the transfer site; in any case, he’ll probably be selected in the Major League draft.

After Graf left the USC tennis facility that afternoon, a woman who had been sitting close by turned to another.

A woman asked, “Do you know who that was you were talking to?”

The other person said, “She said she had a daughter in high school and her son was playing baseball at USC.” And she and her spouse were present here. Their residence is in Las Vegas.

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The companion virtually hissed, “That was Steffi Graf!”

“Not at all! How could I have known?

Former Sports Illustrated journalist David Epstein describes Steffi Graf’s early attendance at a German sports academy in his wonderful book The Sports Gene. She had a series of examinations in which her competitive drive, running speed, and capacity for sustained concentration were all evaluated. Every time, she came in first. “We predicted from her lung capacity that she could have ended up the European champion in the 1,500 meters,” German sport psychologist Wolfgang Schneider said to Epstein.

Tennis was the sport that Graf dedicated her immense abilities, willpower, lung capacity, and competitive drive to, whether she chose it or it was forced upon her. Peter, her father, was an insurance salesman and former soccer player who discovered tennis at the comparatively late age of 27, having never played the sport before. However, he was quickly tempted, leaving his work to become a teacher and run the neighborhood tennis club in the Rhineland village of Bruhl. Peter was quick to declare his daughter a potential champion after she was born in 1969.

Indeed. By the time she was three years old, Steffi was batting a ball back and forth over their living room couch with a wooden racket that had been sawed off. Steffi was given ice cream and strawberries as a reward if she could return Peter’s shots 25 times in a row. Years later, Peter Graf told the Los Angeles Times, “Most of the time, on the twenty-fifth ball, I would hit it too hard so she could not return it.” “Ice cream is not something you can eat every day.”

Steffi was winning West German junior championships, which were for players 18 and under, at the age of 13. She obtained a professional rating on the WTA computer that same year. Tennis was a demonstration sport in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, a field of famous young pros attended. Graf, who turned fifteen recently, was the youngest participant in the draw. She took home the gold.

In tennis, as in boxing, golf, and, well, most sports, all the credit goes to the shoulders, arms, and hands. However, a lot more lifting is really done by the lower extremities. And Steffi Graf moved with efficiency, grace, and speed across the court thanks to her legs. Graf produced incredible force by pushing off her legs and driving into her strokes—a pop that would not have otherwise come from her little physique. “Her physique resembled that of a gymnast,” remarks Martina Navratilova. “Whoa, how did that happen when she hit the ball?”

She would often smite from above. Bud Collins gave her the memorable nickname “Fraulein Forehand.” However, Graf’s adaptable backhand offered a kind of covert weaponry. She may have used a strong one-handed drive or a low-hanging, scythe-like slice.