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A Tribute To A Living Legend

© Michael Cecilio

Bidding Adieu to Fraulein Forehand
It was only a matter of time before the legend, Steffi Graf, would hang up her racquets for good. Not because of injuries, or health problems, or off-court woes, or even a departure in form. No, Steffi Graf has chosen to end her illustrious career on her own terms, basing her decision on a lack of motivation.

One cannot blame the champion for feeling such a lack of motivation, playing week-in and week-out, travelling incessantly to all stops on the globe. And to do so for 17 years must really take its toll. Add to this the fact that Steffi Graf has achieved everything there is to achieve in tennis, perhaps even twice over. Steffi has nothing left to prove, nothing left to gun for - she's been there, done that.

But perhaps her greatest reason for leaving the tour is not that she has simply achieved everything in tennis, but that she has achieved greatness even at the end of her career. Now there really is nothing for Steffi to prove! She has seen the WTA tour go through many changes, and many generations, and still rank at the top of the game! From deposing Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert in the 1980's, to battling for supremacy with Monica Seles and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in the early 1990's, to fending off serious challenges in Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams today, Steffi has been able to maintain her longevity for almost twenty years, and remain at the top of the game throughout.

It all began for Steffi as a young thirteen year old who was quiet and somewhat reclusive, letting her tennis racquet do most of her talking. As it turned out, it would be these characteristics which heavily defined Steffi's personality throughout her career up until the very end. As quiet as she was off the court, on the court, she was explosive. Tracy Austin, a former world #1, played Steffi in what was Graf's professional debut match, and noted that she was a girl who hit the ball so incredibly hard.

What is remarkable is the fact that with the constant evolution of the WTA tour, notably the change of the physical stature of the players and the firepower with which they hit the ball, Steffi was still able to hit it with the best of them. In the 80's, Steffi could matched Martina Navratilova for physical endurance, and in the early 90's Seles matched her with pure firepower. Just for good measure, to show that she too could remain a force almost twenty years into her career, she has consistently beaten a lot of the younger, hard-hitting players of today such as Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams.