Steffi Graf needs no introduction in the tennis world, and neither does her father, Peter, who, despite being caught up in several scandals, always stood by her publicly. But it was her mother, Heidi, who, while supportive of her daughter, once admitted that she found tennis incredibly boring.
Heidi Graf was a tennis player herself in her younger days and had shown promise at the club level. However, she had to give up the sport after developing severe back problems following the birth of her younger child, Michael. The condition got so serious that she once underwent a risky surgery with just a 50% chance of avoiding paralysis.
Unlike her husband, who introduced their daughter Steffi to tennis, Heidi chose to remain in the background. Though she occasionally watched her daughter play from the stands, such appearances were rare.
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In a 2000 interview with Talk Tennis, she candidly revealed the reason: she found tennis boring, despite being supportive of Steffi Graf’s success. She said:
“I was never a tennis mother. Tennis was never my world. It wasn’t always very exciting to watch a ball being hit back and forth for hours on end. I was able to tell the score, but that was it. The reason I went to the tournaments was that I wanted to be with Steffi.”
“The nicest success for me is not Steff’s fame, but how in the past three years she has become a woman. The way she has overcome all of the pressure makes me incredibly proud of my daughter,” she added.
Heidi also made it clear just how much she despised the spotlight, revealing that she often went to great lengths to avoid being seen by paparazzi, doing everything she could to stay unnoticed and protect her privacy.
Steffi Graf's mother Heidi: “The paparazzi pursued us so much that I let myself be smuggled into the boot of the car”
Steffi Graf's mother, Heidi, in her 2000 interview with Talk Tennis, openly expressed her discomfort with fame and the constant attention that came with her daughter’s success. Reflecting on the media frenzy, she said:
“It was very, very difficult for me to be in the public eye. I never got used to that. I’m not the sort of person who likes to be in the foreground. The constant click-click-click of the cameras. I hated that noise. It was always as if you were under a microscope. The headlines, the fans in front of the house. The paparazzi.”
She went on to reveal the extreme lengths she took to avoid being seen, including hiding in the boot of her car to sneak out of the house and even driving at night with her headlights off.
“The paparazzi. They pursued us so much that sometimes I let myself be smuggled into the boot of the car in our driveway, or, if I was driving out at night, I wouldn’t put the headlights on so that no one saw me. Then they shone huge spotlights on me in the car! I wouldn’t wish that whole business on my worst enemy,” she said.
While Peter Graf passed away in 2013, Heidi Graf is still alive and doing well. She currently resides in Summerlin, Las Vegas, where Steffi lives with her husband, Andre Agassi. The 22-time Grand Slam champion’s brother, Michael, also lives there.
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