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SLAM! Sports SLAM! Tennis [an error occurred while processing this directive]    ATP TOUR [an error occurred while processing this directive] WTA TOUR CANADA GRAND SLAMS DAVIS CUP WTT INTERACTIVE ALSO ON SLAM!  |
Friday, August 13, 1999Graf played with rare intensityShe wore white on the court and surrounded herself with soothing black at home. From the age of 13, Graf performed as a professional in public while craving and savouring solitude. Even as she played in front of thousands of fans, she seemed the most solitary of figures, rarely looking at the crowds, rarely smiling, revealing her emotions only in economical little gestures -- the occasional pumped fist, a sharp nod of her head, a grimace as she stared at her racket strings. And yet she burned with desire for the game she loved, and that shone through in nearly every match she played and the hours upon hours she spent practising. Graf, who retired Friday, didn't just want to win, she sought perfection, matches without mistakes. A 6-0, 6-0 victory wouldn't satisfy her if she knew she had hit some sloppy shots or had a few lapses, and won just because her opponent was worse. Graf set the bar so high for herself because for much of her 17-year career that vision of perfection was her greatest challenge, her way of getting through the grind of weekly tournaments and making a sport of easy early round matches against inferior players. It has been said of Graf that it was her athleticism that set her apart, the sprinter's legs that allowed her to run down balls that other players couldn't, the powerful forehand that froze opponents helplessly. All that is true but doesn't fully explain how she persevered through injury and illness and family trauma to win 22 Grand Slam titles, 107 tournaments on the WTA Tour, and spend 377 weeks as No. 1. Among the players of her time, and perhaps of all time, no one could match Graf's singular ability to filter out all manner of distractions, to push away pain and harness all the talents she possessed. Chris Evert might have been steadier, Martina Navratilova might have been a stronger, more versatile athlete, but Graf brought to bear a combination of intensity and quickness even they couldn't match. Monica Seles, Graf's greatest rival at the peak of her career, may have been the only player who could equal her competitive zeal. Seles won eight Grand Slam titles in a 31/2-year span before she was stabbed at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, by a deranged fan of Graf, an event that would tragically link the two players and ultimately separate them. With Seles sidelined or struggling for most of the period between 1993 and 1996, Graf racked up 10 Grand Slam titles while Seles won only one more. The players who then came along to take Graf's spot at the top -- Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport -- benefitted from her interminable injuries, operations and rehabilitations. They didn't have to compete against the kind of player Graf was when she won the Golden Slam -- all four majors and the Olympics -- in 1988, nor the kind of mature, powerful force she became in the mid-1990s. But for one glorious day in early June this year, Hingis saw more than a glimpse of what made Graf a great champion. On that day, the final of the French Open, Hingis felt the full force of Fraulein Forehand, discovered how Graf could dig her way out of trouble and simply overwhelm an opponent. None of Hingis's little tricks worked, not the stalls or taunting smiles, not the underhand serves or petulant slaps at the ball. Graf stared at her in annoyance, fed up with her childishness and gamesmanship, and thoroughly thrashed her in the final set. On that day, finally, after hiding her emotions from public view for 17 years, the 30-year-old Graf showed the crowd and the world exactly how much tennis meant to her. It would be, she knew, her last French Open, and she allowed herself to relish every moment, smiling broadly, almost embarrassed, when the crowd chanted her name, breaking down in tears of joy when she won her sixth French title. Graf's career seemed poised for a perfect ending a month later at Wimbledon when she reached the final and went for her eighth title on Centre Court. But she never quite kicked her game into a high gear that day, and Davenport outplayed her. Graf knew she wouldn't be back, but she didn't make a fuss about it. No theatrical waves to the crowd, no long speeches. She was upset that she hadn't even come close to the perfection she demanded of herself, hadn't taken a title that was within her grasp. In the weeks that followed, she could feel her great desire to compete at the highest level had finally burned out. She wasn't hurt, she said, she simply had played enough and it was time to stop and retreat to the private life she always wanted. 
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