On 1 October 1988 Steffi Graf set a milestone for eternity. Her victory against Gabriela Sabatini in the Olympic final in Seoul was the birth of the Golden Slam. The special moment celebrates its 30th anniversary on Monday.
On the way to eternal glory, monstrous things happened. Steffi Graf gave a sentence. In fact, she had to play Larissa Sawtschenko over the full distance in the quarter-finals of the 1988 Olympic tournament in Seoul. That had happened to her only twice at the four Grand Slam tournaments of that significant year: In the final of Wimbledon against Martina Navratilova and in the final of the US Open against Gabriela Sabatini.
The Gabriela Sabatini who faced Steffi Graf again on October 1, 1988 in the Olympic “Gold Medal Match”. The Grand Slam was already in the pocket of the just 19-year-old German, with an almost frightening dominance Graf had won in Melbourne, Paris, Wimbledon and New York. Now then, the golden finale was to follow, and she set it.
The 6:3, 6:3 against Sabatini marked the legendary “Golden Slam”.
Even 30 years later, Graf’s companions from back then remember this event very well, a player who mastered her sport with an unprecedented sovereignty. Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, once number four in the world, speaks of a “feat of the century”, the long-time national coach Barbara Rittner even goes one step further: “I strongly doubt that anyone will be able to do it again. The Golden Slam shows even after all these years what a special player Steffi was.”
When this special player landed at Incheon Airport in Seoul 30 years ago, she was greeted by a huge crowd of media representatives and fans. A real test for one like Steffi Graf, who used every opportunity to steal from the public spotlight. Press conferences, honours, receptions, all this was an abomination for the young woman, and so she hurried through the terminal in Seoul with her head lowered, her long blond hair as a protective curtain in front of her face.
She hurried through the tournament just as fast, apart from the aforementioned set loss against Larissa Sawtschenko. Gabriela Sabatini, one of the best players in the world at the time, had no chance in the final. Graf swept across the square like a whirlwind, the breaks seemed to take too long for her, Sabatini literally froze before the incredible force of her opponent. Today the Argentinian finds only praising words about the competitor of former times. “Graf was “outstanding” as an athlete and as a person: “It was an honour and a privilege for me to be active on the tour together with her”.
At the end of that fabulous tennis year, Steffi Graf looked back on a balance of 72:3 in the singles. But not the Golden Slam, the moment when she finally became immortal, comes to her mind when she thinks back to 1988. Even bigger for her was the Wimbledon win against Martina Navratilova, when she was 5:7, 0:2 behind and turned the match around. “That was crazy,” she once said herself, although it didn’t sound like her at all.
Today Steffi Graf follows the sport, which made her a world star against her will, as a distanced observer. She lives in Las Vegas with her husband Andre Agassi and their children Jaden Gil (16), a baseball player, and Jaz Elle (14), a fan of art, music and dance. She has a special relationship with Germany’s top player Angelique Kerber, who regularly visits Las Vegas and calls Graf a “great inspiration for me”.
Whether Steffi Graf also had external inspiration in those great years is not known. The assumption is, however, that she was self-sufficient.