TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/88/88capenv.8

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For Steffi Graf, an Open Slam Dunk

September 19, 1988

The West German teenager captures the rarest of laurels

The accomplishment was very nearly nonpareil.  To put the grand slam
of tennis in perspective, it is far rarer than either baseball's (16)
or horse racing's (eleven) triple crowns.  The recent demigods,
Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Billie Jean King among them have
47 major tournament victories, but none managed that perfect
dominance over their rivals and the calendar.  Only four other tennis
players, male and female, belong in this most exclusive of tennis
clubs:  Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly (1953), Rod Laver (1962
and 1969) and Margaret Court (1970).  On Saturday Steffi Graf of West
Germany joined that short list, after momentary jitters, with a 6-3,
3-6, 6-1 win over Argentine Gabriela Sabatini in the U.S. Open final.

Graf, 19, secured he place on the plaque with a style drawn more from
Clausewitz than Connolly or Court.  She dropped only two sets in the
course of her conquest.  In the first act, the Australian Open in
January, she sent Evert down under 6-1, 7-6.  In Paris in June, she
pulverized Soviet Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0, the only double bagel
ever in a French Open singles final and the first in a grand-slam
final since 1911.  The walkover took all of 32 minutes on the soft,
molasses-slow red clay.  During the award ceremony, when the
centurion had metamorphosed back into an unaffected teenage
millionaire, Graf meekly apologized to the crowd, "I'm very sorry it
was so fast."

Her first test came in July during the Wimbledon finals.
Navratilova, the woman Graf dethroned as No. 1, sees the All England
Club's greenswards as a personal fief, and she won the opening set.
For a moment it looked as though the 31-year-old NAvratilova would
gain a distinction long coveted--a record ninth Wimbledon singles
title, one more than Helen Wills Moody won back in the 1920s and
'30s.  Martina punched the air in anticipation.  But silently the
skies turned from summer sun to North Atlantic squall, and Steffi
simply and unceremoniously broke the veteran's serve again and again.
When the carpet bombing from Graf's forehand was over, the score was
5-7, 6-2, 6-1, and a tournament official had to show the slightly
abashed young woman how to hold the trophy for the crowd.

By the time the U.S. Open came around, scarcely anyone doubted that
Graf would romp.  Her task was made even easier when Navratilova
exited prematurely in the quarterfinals after a fabulous seesawing
bout, probably the fort-night's best, with Zina Garrison.  It was a
particularly melancholy end for Navratilova, who during 1983-84 won
six consecutive majors and contends that she too has won the slam.
Few, however, agree:  the slam, like all classic stories, must adhere
to certain unities of time and space, the calendar year being one of
them.

Unconcerned by such questions, Graf blew through challenge of a
semifinal appointment with Evert evaporated when the American caught
a stomach flu and had to default.  Then came the meeting with
Sabatini, who had beaten Graf twice so far this year--the only person
to do so.  But not this time.  Graf was uneven--"In the second set, I
was not so tough"--but finished overwhelmingly.  When the Open was
finally closed, Graf had lost just 23 games in six matches.  That was
all the more restful for Graf, who is off to Seoul to collect a gold
medal in the newly reinstated Olympic event of tennis, a victory that
would complete an even grander slam.

--By Daniel Benjamin