Tennis icon Steffi Graf doesn’t care if the records from her unique career will be broken or stopped in the near future.
“I have beautiful memories of precious times in my life,” the 49-year-old said in an interview with the AFP news agency in Zhuhai on Monday: “But I’m nobody who’s worried about records – I never have been.”
She had had the good fortune “to retire at the right time after such a great career and start the next chapter. But my career and my success have no special place in my life anymore, I don’t give them any special priority.” That’s why she doesn’t care “whether my records are maintained or not. I hardly look back.”
Graf has no doubt that Serena Williams (USA) will reach the Grand Slam record of the Australian Margaret Court (24 titles). “She has proven again and again what she can do and what she is capable of,” said the world’s top ranked player of many years: “She has an enormous determination, a strong will and an incredible game. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t do.” Williams had overtaken Graf (22) in Australia with her 23rd Grand Slam title in 2017 and has been chasing Courts records ever since.
Steffi Graf lives with her husband Andre Agassi and their two children Jaden Gil (17) and Jaz Elle (15) in Las Vegas. Two years after their career ended in 1999, Graf and Agassi had married, and since then Graf has only been staying sporadically in Germany. In 1988 she was the last tennis professional to win the Grand Slam, winning in Melbourne, Paris, Wimbledon and New York. With her Olympic victory in Seoul in the same year, the Golden Slam was born.