On this day: Born June 14, 1969: Steffi Graf, German tennis player

The pursuit of perfection in tennis has proved past all however one participant within the fashionable period, Germany’s Steffi Graf.

During her 17-year profession Graf collected 22 Grand Slam singles titles and spent a file 377 weeks as world primary.

Yet when reviewing Graf’s affect on her sport, there is just one place to start out — 1988.

It was the yr a 19-year-old Graf received the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Olympics. The Golden Slam.

American Serena Williams now owns a modern-era file 23 Grand Slam singles titles and Roger Federer is, for a lot of, the best participant, man or girl, to wield a tennis racket.

Neither have managed a yr fairly like that.

Women’s tennis for a lot of the 1980s was dominated by the long-lasting rivalry between Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert.

A frizzy-haired woman from Mannheim had already begun turning heads in 1982 — the yr Graf debuted on the WTA Tour aged 13.

By 1985 she was on the planet’s high 10 and in 1987 beat Navratilova to win the French Open.

While so many teen upstarts on the time suffered burnout, Graf’s all-round sport, excellent tennis physique and psychological stability ensured she would face up to the rigours of the game.

Her choice for a basic, underspin backhand was a nod to former greats, however a whiplash forehand and heavy serving, have been tailored for the rising energy sport.

Graf started 1988 by profitable the Australian Open with out the lack of a set, beating Evert within the closing. In the French Open closing she thrashed unlucky Russian teenager Natasha Zvereva 6-Zero 6-Zero in 32 minutes — the shortest Grand Slam closing.

Weeks later at Wimbledon “Fraulein Forehand”, the moniker bestowed on her by tennis author Bud Collins, dethroned Wimbledon queen Navratilova, reversing her 1987 closing loss, earlier than clinching the ladies’s doubles title as well.

“This is the end of a chapter, passing the torch if you want to call it that,” Navratilova remarked on the time.

At the U.S. Open, Graf scythed by means of to the ultimate the place she beat elegant Argentine Gabriela Sabatini to turn out to be solely the fifth participant to finish the fabled ‘calendar year’ Grand Slam and the one participant to do it on laborious, clay and grass.

Gordon Jorgensen, then president of the USTA, gave Graf a bracelet with 4 diamonds to mark her feat and some weeks later in Seoul it was gold after beating Sabatini once more within the Olympic singles closing.

With Evert retiring and Navratilova waning, Graf was completely dominant and would have received back-to-back Grand Slams had it not been for gritty Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez Vicario who beat her within the 1989 French Open closing.

Graf wanted a pure rivalry and within the emergence of Yugoslav teenager Monica Seles she discovered one, and a few.

Seles, solely 16, snapped Graf’s 66-match profitable streak by beating her in her personal yard on the 1990 German Open, and some weeks later beat her once more within the French Open closing.

In 1991-1992 Seles claimed six Grand Slam titles to Graf’s two and likewise beat her within the 1993 Australian Open closing. Sadly the rivalry got here to an virtually tragic finish months later when a deranged fan stabbed Seles at a event in Hamburg.

Graf received the remaining Slams in 1993 and likewise received three of the 4 in 1995 and 1996 earlier than Martina Hingis emerged.

Even when the inevitable slide started there was nonetheless one final flourish as Graf beat Hingis in a stormy 1999 French Open closing, months earlier than she retired, aged 30, to start a brand new life with American nice Andre Agassi whom she married in 2001.