Steffi Graf is easily one of the most famous tennis players of her era, capturing the imagination of the tennis world with her calm demeanor and fiery strokes on the court. She was also just as successful, winning a record 22 Grand Slams before it was broken eventually by Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic.
For all her disdain for the limelight, Graf’s was not a career that was devoid of controversy. Perhaps the most famous of those was when Monica Seles, her arch-rival, was stabbed by a fan of the German, who publicly admitted that he did it to stop Seles from overshadowing Graf’s greatness.
In the aftermath of the incident, the former World No. 1 gained an unsavory reputation from fans — that she was not friendly with her colleagues, that she was a cold, calculating machine that only played tennis to win matches.
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In a bold interview with Sportstar in 2000, Steffi Graf opened up about such baseless accusations, hoping to put the matter to bed once and for all. The 22-time Grand Slam champion admitted that she did not have a great social life, especially as she did not like gossipping with other WTA players at tournaments.
"I always hated the gossiping that goes on at tournaments. It was one of the reasons I didn't play that much doubles until late in my career. When you play doubles, you often have to sit around all day between matches, and you know how it is," Steffi Graf said.
At the same time, Graf did not think it was enough to be considered a demerit on her character, in fact claiming that she liked playing with different partners when going for doubles matches.
"Girls talk. But at the same time, I think it's also a fact that I was much more open to choosing new or different practice partners than many of the other women. I enjoyed that very much," she added.
As for the rumors that she was "aloof" to her peers, Graf would have none of it, stating that she never saw a match as more than a match -- meaning that she never took personal offense against players based on a match result.
"One thing that annoys me is the common assumption that I chose to be aloof from the other players so I would be intimidating, or that I needed to keep my distance because I was competing against them. To me, a match was always just a match. Nothing more, nothing less," Steffi Graf said.
Steffi Graf: "Never in my life did I feel I couldn't be friendly with another player"
Speaking in the aforementioned interview, Steffi Graf maintained that she has never tried to intimidate any of her opponents, and that she was never "standoffish" with anyone on the tour.
"Never in my life did I feel I couldn't be friendly with another player because I had to compete against her. I never felt a desire or need to intimidate anybody. I was never standoffish for professional reasons," Steffi Graf said.
The German further added about her off-court personality:
"It was just my personality at the start. Later it was the need to get away from the game when I wasn't actually playing, because I was putting so much of my energy into it."
After a career spanning 17 long years, Steffi Graf retired in 1999, making her final Grand Slam appearance at Wimbledon and reaching the final.
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