Childhood and family of tennis player Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf (full name Stefanie Maria Graf) was born in 1969 in the small town of Brühl.
At the age of three I picked up a tennis racket. The girl's father was the head of a small tennis club and he also became her first coach. Having discerned the talent of a tennis player in the baby, Peter Graf completely switched to teaching his daughter. He sold his business, hired Steffi a professional trainer, Pavel Slozhil, and invited fitness trainer Prull. In addition to tennis, her father forced Steffi to play basketball, also at a professional level. On his recommendation, the girl dropped out of school (began studying part-time) and devoted herself entirely to tennis.
The beginning of Steffi Graf's sports career
At the age of 12, Graf won the Orange Bowl tournament, and the next year she became the best in Europe in her age category. During this period, Steffi freely beats 18-year-old rivals and does not experience any competition in the country.
Steffi Graf - genius tennis player
At the age of 13, the girl makes her debut at competitions among adult professionals. This happened at a tournament in Stuttgart. “The child prodigy of the century,” as experts and journalists figuratively nicknamed the girl, quickly began to move up in the rankings of adult tennis players.
Steffi Graf in tennis
In 1984, Steffi became an Olympic champion, although she was seeded only eighth in the tournament. The following year, Graf is among the ten strongest tennis players in the world.
1986 brought Graf eight victories in WTA tournaments, the title of third racket in the world and his first victory over the great Navratilova.
1987 The Count finishes first racket, wins 7 tournaments in a row and wins Roland Garros. At that time, she was not yet 18 years old - she became the youngest winner of the French Open in its entire history.
The period from 1987 to 1989 was marked by the great confrontation between Graf and Navratilova. Three years in a row they met in the Wimbledon final.
In 1989, another confrontation between the Count and Monica Selish begins. Although the result of personal meetings was 10:6 in favor of Graf, in 1891 Monica became the first racket. The confrontation was interrupted by an accident. In 1993, at a tournament in Hamburg, Monica is stabbed by a mentally ill fan, Graf. The wound turned out to be minor, but Monica’s peace of mind was disrupted. She refused to perform on the courts for 2 years, and when she returned, she could not reach her previous heights.
During her time on the courts, Graf won 22 Grand Slam tournaments in singles and doubles and won 107 WTA singles tournaments.
Seven facts from the life of Steffi Graf
1. Stefania Maria Graf first picked up a racket at the age of three. Steffi's first coach was her father Peter, who shortened the handle of one of his rackets for his daughter. In the basement of the house, he placed two chairs, between which he pulled a rope, and the little girl threw the ball through it. For 25 correct strikes, three-year-old Steffi received cookies, and for 50, she received her favorite treat - strawberry ice cream. 2. Exceptional abilities allowed Steffi to begin her professional career at the age of 13 and become the second youngest professional tennis player after American Gracie Austin. She also made history as the first athlete to defeat the legendary Martina Navratilova, thus ending her long unchallenged reign as world number one. This event occurred in the semifinals of the US Open. Steffi was only 16 at the time. At the end of 1987, she became world number one and held the lead for a total of 377 weeks. In 1988, the tennis player not only won all four Grand Slam tournaments, but also became an Olympic champion. In total, she won the Grand Slam tournaments 22 times! Her professional career lasted 17 years. During this period, Steffi won 107 singles trophies and earned $22 million in prize money. 3. April 30, 1993 became a dark day for two leading tennis players. A German fan, clearly suffering from schizophrenia, plunged a kitchen knife into the back of Yugoslavian Monica Seles during a match at the Hamburg tournament. So he wanted to put an end to the rivalry between the two tennis players (Seles at that time became the first racket of the world, displacing the Countess from the throne). Moreover, Ponter Parche carried out his bloody revenge with the name of his idol, Stefania Maria Graf, on his lips. After this incident, Steffi quickly came to her senses. But Monica was able to play in official competitions only two years later. The German Themis was favorable to the maniac, making allowances for his supposedly not entirely healthy psyche. The potential murderer was sentenced to a two-year suspended (!!) sentence with mandatory medical supervision. 4. The Count never commented on her personal life. It is only known that her official boyfriend was the German racing driver Mikael Bartels. And mutual sympathy between Agassi and Graf arose a long time ago. At first it was expressed in cute Christmas gifts to each other. Agassi was then seen leaving Steffi's house early one morning. This was the time when Andre's first scandals began with the Hollywood star Brooke Shields, and Steffi began to be burdened by her sluggish relationship with Bartels. Only after finally breaking up with their former partners did 31-year-old Agassi and 32-year-old Graf reveal themselves to the world as a happy couple in love. 5. “Graphologists” claim that Steffi’s first man was... Agassi. As they managed to find out, the German woman lost her virginity in the arms of Andre in the spring of 1989 in the most suitable place for this - Paris, on the eve of Roland Garros. Later in an interview, Andre Agassi will note: “I have never met a single woman who has such sweet lips as Steffi.”
But most importantly, the Count became pregnant. “I used to be just a famous athlete, but now I felt like a woman. Andre is the man of my life. I hope that I can make him truly happy,” said Steffi Graf. On October 27, 2001, she gave her beloved son, 50 centimeters tall and weighing 2.5 kilograms. He was given the unusual name Jayden Gill. And two years later, on November 6, 2003, in Andre’s homeland, in a private clinic in Las Vegas, a second child was born - daughter Jazz Elle. 6. Even before the birth of this star couple’s first child, the organizer of one of the American tournaments, John Korff, offered Andre and Steffi $10 million if their child would take part in his competition in 2020. On the Internet you can now also make a forecast on the outcome of a tennis match between the son of the Sampras couple and the first-born Agassi. By the way, it was at the Korfa tournament that Graf announced her retirement from tennis. Steffi was forced to make this decision by severe back pain and joint problems. After winning Roland Garros in 1999, she once again reached the final of the Grand Slam tournament (this was at Wimbledon), where she lost to American Lindsay Davenport. “It was a difficult time,” Steffi said. — After Wimbledon, I realized for the first time that tennis was not the most important thing in my life. The will to win had probably faded away in me. I began to realize that I could no longer achieve more in sports.” At the official send-off for the tennis player, the organizers of the Australian Open presented her with a huge poster with the inscription: “In memory of Melbourne”, the British - a tastefully decorated list of all her matches at the Wimbledon tournament, the Americans - a photo portrait of Graf with the US Open champion trophy and a piece of cement surface of the court named after Louis Armstrong, in which she became a champion five times. However, the biggest surprise for Steffi was the gift of a locker door in the dressing room at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, where she won her last Grand Slam tournament. “This is a special gift for me. All the girls knew that I always use this particular locker, and they tried not to occupy it,” Steffi noted with sadness in her voice. 7. The wedding of the world's two most successful tennis stars took place on November 23, 2001. “You can’t imagine how happy I feel when I wake up in the morning and open my wardrobe with Steffi,” said Agassi. “How glad I am that in our common home, in every corner of it, you can feel a caring female hand.” Surprisingly, Steffi turned out to be an excellent housewife, a true keeper of the hearth. Now every day when she is around, when we are together, turns into a holiday for me. I didn’t even expect to be so happy in my marriage.” True, before the wedding, the Count and Agassi drew up a marriage contract, the main point of which was... the division of property in the event of divorce. The couple's joint fortune at that time was estimated at $500 million. Steffi’s share is only about 100 million, and the remaining 400 million was brought into the family treasury by her husband, at whose insistence the marriage contract was concluded. The contract says in black and white that, regardless of whose fault they suddenly break up, Steffi will receive half the value of the mansion (it is valued at $23 million) in the San Francisco area, as well as 6 million in cash. If Agassi proposes a divorce, then he will have to pay the Count another 750 thousand for each year they lived together...
Olga GURINA, newspaper "Facts"
Records of Steffi Graf
In a sport like tennis, it is difficult to talk about records, however, Steffi has several unique achievements.
By 1991, Graf had been world number one for 186 consecutive weeks. And in 1997 she brought the record to 377 weeks. Not a single tennis player, neither man nor woman, could achieve such a result.
In 1995-1996, Graf participated in six Grand Slam championships and won them all, thereby showing a 100% result.
The Count has positive statistics in meetings with all rivals. Only with Navratilova the score of personal meetings is 9:9.
Graf is the only tennis player to win the Golden Grand Slam. In 1998, Steffi added Olympic gold to her victories in the traditional 4 Grand Slam tournaments.
The only tennis player who has won each of the Grand Slam tournaments at least 4 times.
For 10 years (1987-1997), Steffi did not fall below second place in the ranking of tennis players.
During her sports career, she earned more than $21 million in prize money. This record was broken only in 2007, and only due to the fact that the amount of prize payouts at tennis tournaments increased significantly.
In the 1988 Roland Garros final, Steffi played the shortest match. She needed only 34 minutes to beat Soviet tennis player Zvereva.
From June 1989 to April 1990, she had a streak of 66 winning matches. This is the second highest figure in the history of women's tennis (after Navratilova's result).
Professional tennis success
Graf turned professional in October 1982, when she was just 13 years and 4 months old, and a few weeks later she became the second youngest player to be internationally ranked (No. 124). Although tennis was only a demonstration sport at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, California, she survived the field to win an honorary gold medal.
Her schedule carefully controlled by her father, Graf saw her world ranking rise to No. 6 by the end of 1985. She received her first Grand Slam title by winning the French Open in 1987, defeating Martin Navratilov. On August 17, 1987, Graf became the No. 1 tennis player in the world, a position she held for an impressive 186 consecutive weeks.
The Count won the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the Tourney. The 1988 US Open makes her the third woman to win all four Grand Slam titles in one calendar year. She also won gold at the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, this fall. Her revolutionary winning streak was called the "Golden Grand Slam".
On October 3, 1991, Graf became the youngest woman to reach the 500-year mark. career wins. An outstanding athlete with a strong focus and an excellent palm stroke, she collected at least one Grand Slam singles title every year until 1997. She also received a silver medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Personal life of Steffi Graf
In 1992-1999, Steffi dated racing driver Bartels. But then Graf’s romance with another tennis star, Andre Agassi, began to develop rapidly. At first, even the meticulous paparazzi did not believe the rumors that appeared. What could "Miss Integrity" and "Mr. Womanizer" have in common? However, at the end of 2001, the wedding of world tennis stars took place in Las Vegas. Everything happened in secret; not a single journalist “leaked” to the wedding - only the closest people were present.
Steffi Graf with her husband Andre Agassi
After the wedding, Agassi opened up and said that he was very afraid of the reaction of his ex-wife Brooke Shields. But she unexpectedly sent the newlyweds a very sweet congratulatory telegram.
When the couple had their first child, the eccentric Agassi told a journalist that his son would definitely become a tennis player and surpass his parents on the court. One of the tennis racket companies offered Graf and Agassi $10,000,000 for the participation of their first child in the 2020 tennis tournament. The parents did not refuse and the baby’s account ended up with a substantial amount.
Now the couple has two children: in addition to their son Jip, their daughter Eli is also growing up. The happy family lives in a $23 million “cozy home” with stunning views of the famous Golden Gate Bridge, two swimming pools and, of course, a tennis court.
Methods of representing a graph
The graph can be represented (saved) in several ways:
- adjacency matrix;
- incidence matrix;
- adjacency (incident) list;
- list of edges.
Using the first two methods involves storing the graph as a two-dimensional array (matrix). The size of the array depends on the number of vertices and/or edges in a particular graph. The adjacency matrix of a graph is a square matrix in which each element takes one of two values: 0 or 1. The number of rows of the adjacency matrix is equal to the number of columns and corresponds to the number of vertices in the graph.
- 0 – corresponds to the absence of an edge,
- 1 – corresponds to the presence of an edge.
When the passage from one vertex to another is free (there is an edge), 1 is entered into the cell, otherwise - 0. All elements on the main diagonal are equal to 0 if the graph has no loops. The incidence matrix of a graph is a matrix in which the number of rows corresponds to the number of vertices, and the number of columns corresponds to the number of edges. It indicates the connections between the incident elements of the graph (edge (arc) and vertex). In an undirected graph, if a vertex is incident to an edge, then the corresponding element is equal to 1, otherwise the element is equal to 0. In a directed graph, if an edge leaves a vertex, then the corresponding element is equal to 1, if an edge enters a vertex, then the corresponding element is equal to -1, if the edge is absent, then the element is equal to 0. The incidence matrix for its representation requires numbering of edges, which is not always convenient.
Adjacency (incident) list If the number of graph edges compared to the number of vertices is small, then the values of most elements of the adjacency matrix will be equal to 0. In this case, the use of this method is inappropriate. For such graphs, there are better ways to represent them. In terms of memory, adjacency lists are less demanding than adjacency matrices. Such a list can be presented in the form of a table with 2 columns and no more rows than there are vertices in the graph. In each line, the first column indicates the output vertex, and the second column contains a list of vertices that include edges from the current vertex.
Advantages of an adjacency list:
- Rational use of memory.
- Allows you to quickly iterate through the neighbors of a vertex.
- Allows you to check for the presence of an edge and remove it.
Disadvantages of an adjacency list:
- When working with saturated graphs (with a large number of edges), the speed may not be enough.
- There is no quick way to check if an edge exists between two vertices.
- The number of vertices in the graph must be known in advance.
- For weighted graphs, you have to store a list, the elements of which must contain two significant fields, which complicates the code: the number of the vertex to which the current one is connected;
- rib weight.
List of edges In the list of edges, each line contains two adjacent vertices and the weight of the edge connecting them (for a weighted graph). The number of lines in the edge list must always be equal to the value resulting from adding the oriented edges with twice the number of undirected edges.
What is the best way to represent a graph? The answer depends on the relationship between the number of vertices and the number of edges. The number of edges can be quite small (of the same order as the number of vertices) or quite large (if the graph is complete). Graphs with a large number of edges are called dense, while graphs with a small number are called sparse. It is more convenient to store dense graphs as an adjacency matrix, and sparse graphs as an adjacency list.
Steffi Graf today
After finishing her sports career, Steffi did not go on the tennis court for several years. Since 2006, she began to take part in exhibition and charity matches. Sometimes she performs with her husband.
The Count runs the Children for Tomorrow children's foundation, does charity work, and finances some junior tennis players.
The former first rocket of the advertising world does not shy away. She is the face of the Swiss watch company LONGINES. It also advertises clothes and other items from famous brands.
He is often an honored guest at the most prestigious tennis tournaments.
End of career
Until 1990, it was Graf who dominated the tennis Olympus. Then she was supplanted by Gabriela Sabatini and Monica Seles. It became increasingly difficult to resist such rivals. Steffi maintained the record for the number of gold medals in tournaments and competitions in world qualifications until 2008. For 377 weeks, she remained at the top of the professional rankings. This indicator was recognized as the best among both women and men.
The confrontation with Monica Seles began in 1989. The Yugoslav athlete became a worthy opponent. She managed to beat Graf several times. The continuation of her career was prevented by psychological trauma in 1993. In 1996, Steffi was among the most promising candidates for Olympic gold and was preparing to participate in the games in Atlanta. Training had to be interrupted due to injury.
After a series of failures, doctors diagnosed joint problems. This did not stop Stefania from becoming first in the Roland Garros tournament in 1999 and reaching the final of the Wimbledon Grand Slam. In this fight, the determined German lost to the rising star Lindsay Davenport. A month later, Graf announced her retirement from the sport. She left professional tennis.
After leaving, Steffi stopped collaborating with the Wilson and Adidas brands. She did not continue to interact with sponsors. The athlete refused the prospect of becoming a coach, did not give interviews and did not take part in advertising.
