All about Steffi - The birthday baby of yesterday

More than in any other sport, fans of tennis have always been very assertive in determining who the best player ever to have played the game is. The advent of Roger Federer and his record of 16 Grand Slam victories in no time have really taken this argument to another level. To add to that, the arrival of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic as two of the most formidable forces recently has divided the tennis world into three.

Of late, a sort of world war is happening among tennis passionate fans, who are literally ambushing one another, claiming their own heroes as the best in the business. Those who have been regularly logging into social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can see such volleys of exchanges between the fans. The present era, at least, has options for fans to group themselves and get involved in such entertaining feuds.

But if such social networking sites had existed a couple of decades ago, there wouldn’t have been any dispute of this sort. The fans, then, would not have been abusing or bashing one another but on the other hand would have been enjoying warm hugs and a very cordial relationship. I do not mean to say that the fans of yesteryear were more sporting, but the fact of the matter was they literally did not have any options.

Determination of the greatest player of all times was not a difficult job those days as more than 90% of the tennis fans came to terms with one inevitable thing and that was unanimously agreeing to one thing – Steffi Graf is the greatest player of all time, amongst the players from both the sexes. They simply did not have options those days. What more one can do other than supporting a player who had won 22 Grand Slams in her career and who holds a winning percentage of 88.7%? In spite of such achievements, even if a few people were hesitant to accept her as the greatest of all time, there was one more record to which even such reluctantly peculiar factionists had to take a bow. That record was something very rare to happen but it happened and was perhaps the toughest of them all.

We know how many times Roger Federer tried it and eventually fell short. Very recently, Nole failed to do it. But this lady did not have too many problems doing it. In 1988, she rewrote history when she became the only one in tennis to capture a Golden Grand Slam. Yes, she not only earned the calendar Grand Slam i.e., fetching all the four majors in a single year but also she earned the Olympic gold medal in the same year. How many of the future generation or current set of players can be hand -picked to create such a record, be it in ATP or WTA? I feel there is not even the slimmest chance for anyone to do it again.

She was not someone who played an all court game and you would have never seen her whipping the ball with backhand forcibly or seen her coming at the nets. Her only strength had been her forehand and with the help of which she had won more number of grandslams second only to Margret Court and that was something more amazing. It speaks highly of her commitment and focus for the game.

Steffi Graf earned fans and stalkers not only because of her tennis prowess but also because of her sublime beauty. Normally, where you see beauty, finding talent along with it is a rarity. Steffi was one of such rare species which we do not come across very often. Most of the tennis fans all over the world follow women’s tennis only to admire the beauty of the divas playing it. Steffi had stiff competition running during her playing days as there were ladies who looked more captivating than her. Anna Kournikova of Russia, Mary Pierce of France and the pearl of pampas, Gabriella Sabatini were a few of those divas who looked every bit as good as Steffi. But then fans who had already fallen for the German, never lost their focus on her though there were potential diversions.

Those who have read the autobiography of Andre Agassi , “Open”, would know how desperate he was to even find a reason for conversing with her. He really came out of his dignified position as one of the greatest players in tennis and behaved like a Romeo to his eventual better half. It was worth reading actually and it was one of the best autobiographies ever narrated; tennis fans have to read it to understand the romance between tennis’ greatest couple.

Steffi Graf was the reason why people used to watch tennis those days. The drop in viewership in women’s tennis was largely due to the fact that she was no longer a tennis professional. She used to be a household name everywhere no matter which country you belonged to. Steffi has left such an indelible mark in women’s tennis that even during this era of Sharapovas and Ivanovics, people haven’t forgotten how pretty she was.

No one can stop reminiscing what happened when Steffi was mesmerizing the Centre Court with her game and her incredible beauty on that particular day in Wimbledon. A fan from the crowd cried, “Steffiiiiiiiii, Will you marry me?”. In came the answer immediately from the great German, “Well, how much money do you have?” Says all about what sense of humour she had – does it not? No wonder this smiling champion had all the fans in the world rooting for her every time.

P.S.- Steffi – Women’s tennis has a big void ever once you left the game and the same may probably never be filled. Accept on behalf of millions and millions of fans all around the world a very belated Happy Birthday from one of your die hard fans.