Steffi Graf

Born June 14, 1969 in Manhiem, West Germany Stefanie Marie Graf is a former world #1 tennis player. As a child, Steffi was introduced to the game and coached by her father Peter. As a young tennis player, Steffi won numerous juniors tournaments and in 1982, at the age of 12, she won the European Championships 12s and 18s. She then went on to play in her first professional tournament in October of that same year she played in her first professional tournament in Filderstadt, Germany, where she lost 4-6, 0-6. In the next year, when she played full time on the professional circuit, Steffi began the season ranked 124th in the world and steadily improved, and was ranked 98th by the end of the year, 22nd in1984, and 6th in 1985. Also in 1984, Steffi represented West Germany at the Olympics in Los Angeles in the tennis demonstrations and won the gold medal. It was then in 1986, she won her first tournament at Hilton Head, South Carolina, and then several more and ended the year ranked 3rd in the world. After that, she started to turn heads in 1987, starting by playing her way into the finals at Wimbledon, where she lost to world #1 Martina Navratilova and won several tournaments, including the 1987 French Open, and was able to overtake Navratilova as the new world #1. In 1988, it was considered to be the best season that Steffi ever had. She started out by winning the Australian Open, Wimbledon, French Open, the Gold Medal at the Olympic Games in Seoul, and lastly the U.S Open, becoming the only player to win a "Golden Slam", all four Grand Slams in the same year, in addition to winning the Gold Medal at the Olympics, in addition winning the Bronze medal in doubles tennis as well. After all that success, continued her dominance, winning 17 more Grand Slams and becoming a finalist in 7 more Grand Slam finals. She then retired in 1999, after winning her 6th French Open Championship. After her retirement, Steffi met and eventually married fellow tennis player and former world #1, Andre Agassi and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Even to this day, she can boast of having the longest world #1 ranking among the women and men players at 377 weeks. It is with all of this success that Steffi had on the court, she has certainly been an asset to the tennis world and role model to the current and future tennis players.