STEFFI GRAF passes through the tall glass doors of the Parker-Meridien hotel in midtown Manhattan in much the same way she’s always arrived at or departed from the world’s most prestigious tennis courts and clubhouses: In a hurry. As she enters the lobby, her pale blue eyes light up and she smiles fleetingly. It’s a sweltering late-summer afternoon in the city, but Graf, who’s clad in a thin gray cashmere sweater and a black skirt, looks as composed as she always did on the court.
“Sorry,” she says, “I’m not late, am I? I’ve just come back from setting some riding stuff from Miller’s,” the landmark equestrian shop she visited in preparation for a vacation in Arizona. It’s a mere five minutes past our appointed hour of 4 p.m., but in Eastern Graf Impatient Time, 300 seconds is akin to an eternity.
As it appeared in the print edition
Graf has slowed down just long enough to talk about her sparkling 17-year career, during which she won 107 singles titles, including 22 Grand Slam championships (two short of Margaret Court’s all-time record). Burnishing Graf’s illustrious achievement is her mastery of every surface: She won seven times on Wimbledon’s grass, six on Roland Garros’ clay, five on Flushing Meadows’ Deco Turf II, and four on Melbourne’s Rebound Ace. Now she’s in the midst of the Graf World Tour, a four-month, six-continent retirement party consisting of exhibitions against current and former pros, clinics with children, and a host of other events.
But despite her fame, Graf is the champion nobody really knows. Shy and protective to begin with, she became even more guarded after two scandals involving her father, Peter. For the past decade, she has presented an attractive but enigmatic persona. Only those closest to her have been allowed to learn who she is.
Trust me, I know. I’ve tried to do this kind of in-depth interview with Graf time and time again – and been politely and graciously refused. And I was one of the journalists who had a friendly relationship with her. But I’m not complaining: many others are still waiting.
We sit down in an empty cocktail lounge on the ground floor of the hotel to talk. Over the next few hours, it becomes clear that while Graf is a warmer person now than in her youth – and apt to laugh freely when teased – she remains incurably bashful.
This is especially true when it comes to talking about things that are more personal than her tennis game. She won’t, for example, discuss her “love match” with Andre Agassi, which reportedly began shortly before the 1999 U.S. Open. (See “Her lips are sealed”)
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At times, Graf reaches across the small round table and turns off the tape recorder, presumably because she finds herself painted into a psychological or emotional corner, or because she’s not comfortable issuing strong judgments about some of her peers for public consumption. When she reflects on her mixed-doubles partnership at Wimbledon with John McEnroe – he criticised her freely and often after she defaulted from last year’s semifinals – she leaves it at this: “I’d wanted to play with John all my life: I admired his game and achievements so much. It was fun, but it was very intense, and something 1 wouldn’t want to do again.”
After this interview, I felt much the same way.
Last spring you began a remarkable resurgence by winning the French Open, and today you’re officially retired from the game. Have the past few months been an emotional roller-coaster ride for you?
Yes, but not necessarily in the ways most people would think. Lots of different things were going on. Among them, I was in the process of breaking up with Michael (Bartels. a German auto racer), and seven years of history is a lot to undo. Also, my father told us this summer that he was going to get remarried.
In terms of tennis, I had so many nagging problems going into the Grand Slam season that I had no expectations at all. I played only one clay-court event before Roland Garros, my back was hurting again, and, worst of all, I had no confidence because my practice and playing time were minimal. So I just went out and played, with a clear mental image of what 1 wanted to do – just go for my shots and see what happens. A lot of times in the past that didn’t work. In Paris, it did. It all came together in an unexpected way.
Did you have any sense that the clock was ticking, winding down to the end of your career?
I’ve heard that clock for a few years now. For quite a while. 1 had been asking myself if I was still going out there for the right reasons, which are to give myself to the game completely and have fun. After that high in Paris, I had something immediate to look forward to: Wimbledon. I just kept going, without thinking very much about the future at all. I suppose people were surprised when I said I wouldn’t be back after I lost to Lindsay (Davenport) in the Wimbledon final. But to me that definitely was the end of something. I felt so much joy after expecting so little. I was so satisfied. That’s probably why my motivation finally left me for good when that great run ended. When I went home after Wimbledon, I felt empty toward tennis, and that sensation didn’t change.
When I arrived in the States two weeks later, I had to fill out the usual form for customs, telling how long I was going to stay in the U.S. I figured it out – with the U.S. Open it would be nine weeks. But I wrote down five. After Mahwah (a New Jersey exhibition), my next scheduled event was in San Diego. I didn’t want to leave Boca Raton. I still didn’t feel like playing. I did finally get on the plane – I just thought I had to go there to be absolutely sure about quitting, because I was getting tired of the dialogue I was conducting with myself. But once I got to San Diego, I knew for sure. I pulled out of the event because of a strain in a groin muscle, but that was a minor thing. My mind was made up and I haven’t questioned the decision to retire since then, not even for a second of a second.
Most of us have our youth, college, and then the serious business of a career. You’ve had a career in tennis since you first started hitting a tennis ball at age four. Has that made it harder or easier to stop at age 30?
It’s easier, because I have so much to look forward to, things I’ve fantasised about doing for so long. I was tempted at various times during my career to just disappear, to do things I really wanted. Now I can. For example, the day after the press conference (in Germany) announcing my retirement, I hopped on a plane to Edinburgh, Scotland, to spend three days at the Fringe festival (an offbeat arts and music festival featuring mostly unconventional entertainers). I just decided to go, alone, and met some British friends there.
We all know how well you handled pressure, but was there more going on under the surface than met the eye?
Oh, a lot. Maybe I handled pressure well. but it put a big strain on me. Especially because I always tried to be really professional. I had a high standard and if I didn’t meet it, I tried harder still. You know what I wish sometimes? That I found a little more “easy-ness” about tennis. Sure, I tried to take pressure off: I went to the art galleries and museums and such. But still, tennis occupied my mind too much. The eating routine, the going-to-sleep routine, the waking-up routine. The schedule. It was a compulsion.
Well, it certainly got you in pretty good shape. Are you flattered when people talk about what great legs you have?
Sure! Who wouldn’t be thrilled to hear that? But I’ve always been scared of having too many muscles, and I prefer being thinner than I often was during my career. One of the nice things about retiring is that I don’t have to eat so much anymore. To play my best, I always had to weigh more than I wanted. I always felt I had to eat; I was always trying to get the energy back. I’ve lost a few kilos now and I feel better.
Up to and including 1988, when you won all four Grand Slams and an Olympic Gold Medal, your world revolved totally around tennis. But over the next decade, that bubble was ruptured by three traumatic events, the first of which was your father’s paternity scandal, in 1990. Did that rock your world?
Yeah, I was completely unprepared. Absolutely. Not only with what happened – with the press coverage and all that – but because it truly came out of the blue. And it really hurt.
Did that event shatter your image of your father?
It made my life more difficult because I’ve never been comfortable in the spotlight, even in the best and happiest of times. So you can imagine how it hit me when the news about this woman (Nicole Meissner, a model with reputed German underworld connections, who claimed Peter Graf was the father of her child) came out during the Berlin tournament. Of course, the story was timed to create the most publicity in Germany.
I remember like it was yesterday. I had to play Monica (Seles) in the final of the event and I had absolutely no desire to set foot on the court. I finally decided to play, and I lost, badly. When I got back into the locker room, I smashed my racquet against the wall. I hit it so hard that I made a hole in the wall. It was the first and last time I ever did such a thing. I guess that shows how difficult it was. In some ways, my career changed for good after that. I wasn’t ever the most open person, or the most communicative. This only made it worse, and for a long time. Sure, some very big mistakes were made by my father, and I wouldn’t deny that. But I also had a very hard time with how sensationally things were portrayed, and how they were just put out there for all the world to see, with very little concern for me or my family. It became a big part of everything I was doing, and I felt that was wrong.
Over the years, your father would have some other problems, including alcoholism. Did you ever feel that you were responsible for any or all of his troubles?
In the beginning, I felt a little that the problems were created by me. But, ultimately, that wasn’t where I put the blame. Of course, you ask yourself in various situations, “What part did I play,” “What could I have done differently to maybe prevent all this from happening?” But it wasn’t like we didn’t try, like we thought the drinking was OK and just looked the other way. But people don’t always respond or commit to changing until something happens within themselves. That didn’t happen. Maybe I should have taken a stronger, more absolute position. I don’t know. Honestly, I’m not sure I was strong enough at the time to handle it any differently.
Do you ever cry?
I cry a lot. I do. Yeah, I’ve cried after losing tennis matches, but that was early in my career. I haven’t cried over a tennis match for years. I cried recently when I saw the movie The Sixth Sense , when the main character, a little boy who sees and communicates with ghosts, tries to explain to his mother why he’s so scared. The ghost of her mother – his grandmother – told him the secret of a falling out between the two women. I guess I cry when things touch my heart.
Traumatic event No. 2: In April 1993, a deranged fan of yours stabbed Monica Seles in the back during a tournament in an effort ultimately successful — to secure you the No. 1 ranking. Seles was sidelined for more than two years. The morning after the stabbing, you and Monica had a tearful meeting in the hospital. But later, she and her family accused you of not being sufficiently supportive, while you claimed that you tried calling her but weren’t able to get through. What is your final word on that chain of events?
I don’t want to replay what happened then because, as it happens, I saw Monica’s mother, Esther, recently. We talked a little. And at some point, I’m hoping that maybe Monica and I will be able to talk about the stabbing and move on from there. But I did make an effort to talk to her after that morning in the hospital. And I understand how awful it was for Monica to go through that. I think it created great turmoil and confusion. And I really felt horrible, knowing that some fan of mine did that to her. It was a devastating blow.
How do you react to being characterised as an unfeeling or cold person?
Not at all. Anyone who thinks I’m cold doesn’t know me.
The Seles incident and its aftermath leads into the larger issue of your relationships with your peers and the game. On a typical day at a tournament, you came, you won, you left. Did you feel any affection for the game or for the other players?
There are a few parts to the answer. The first has to do with how shy I was at the beginning of my career. I just didn’t make friends very easily. And then, to me, tennis was always about the playing.
I loved the playing and I loved the training. I enjoy performing before a crowd, even though you wouldn’t know it from my face or my body language. I took the game the only way I knew how, seriously, and it wasn’t in my personality to be smiling on the court or getting involved with the crowd.
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