Even after a successful tennis career, Steffi Graf’s retirement left a vacuum in the hearts of her followers.
She retired from tennis in 1999, at the age of 30, and has never returned. While her followers may not understand why she took such a big step at such a young age, his boyhood pal Boris Becker does.
The 56-year-old German tennis player goes into great detail in his book on how, for one simple reason, the girl who used to strive day and night to achieve on the court gave up everything. Let’s take a look at why Steffi Graf took such a significant career jump in 1999.
Becker, in his autobiography, ‘The Player’, talked in detail about his childhood friend, who has also won 22 Grand Slam championships on the WTA tour. He said, “Even as a child, Steffi was focused and introverted and sometimes trained like a robot. Steffi was too determined for some people’s liking—too correct, too cool, too ‘Made in Germany’.”
He discussed not only the 54-year-old tennis legend’s dedication to the sport, but also how her father’s financial troubles affected her. Graf was a perfectionist by nature, but she was also highly sensitive and empathetic, as she struggled to express her feelings optimally.
Even though tennis was the most significant element of her life at the time, she had other priorities. Becker speculated on what the 22-time Grand Slam champion is planning to do after winning her eighth Wimbledon title. “She probably told herself: To hell with my feelings, what I want now is to win Wimbledon for the eighth time.”
Although she had everything in the world, her father’s 7.3 million tax fraud got on her mind. He further wrote, “The tax scandals concerning her father, the court case, and his imprisonment took their toll on Steffi. I believe this also changed her way of dealing with her feelings. Steffi cried, and the people at home in front of the television cried with her. At last, something came from the heart, and the nation took her into its embrace. We’ve been comrades in arms over the years.”
According to claims made in 1997, the German tennis player’s father attempted to avoid paying $1.8 million in taxes and failed to pay a $7.3 million tax on his daughter’s earnings. He was then sentenced to twenty-five months in prison. The father-daughter relationship was strained as a result of the tax fraud, but it was mended in 2013, just before Peter Graf’s death from cancer.
It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that it was a sad moment that altered Graf’s career path in the most unexpected way. Following her retirement in 1999, she pursued her own path and married Andre Agassi in 2001, leaving a more peaceful existence with her own family.
