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Steffi Graf Admiration Thread Vol 2

864K views 6K replies 140 participants last post by  Michael! 
#1 ·
This is a great idea to start this topic...
I shall dedicate this thread to the player who made me notice tennis and follow it eversince I saw her play.....

Steffi Graf!
:bounce: :bounce:
 
#5,801 ·
If anybody who is personally acquainted with Steffi ever reads this, please give her a big hug "just because."

Graf has her break cut short
The Independent
London, England
Thursday, October 19, 1995
John Roberts reports from Brighton

Steffi Graf still considers her "little holiday" from tax problems in Germany to have been worthwhile, even though it turned into an away-day. The Wimbledon champion's lack of match practice since winning the United States Open six weeks ago was cruelly exposed in her opening match at the Brighton international tournament when she was overwhelmed by the power and confidence of Mariaan de Swardt, a hefty South African qualifier, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.

It was only the second defeat of the year for Graf, the other, in Toronto in August, also having been inflicted by a South African, the diminutive Amanda Coetzer, who, by coincidence, was playing on an adjacent court when the drama unfolded yesterday.

De Swardt, No 54 in the world, is the lowest ranked player to defeat Graf since she lost to Britain's Jo Durie (No 52) at Brighton in 1985 - the last occasion Graf was beaten in the tournament.

A winner of the title six times, Graf expressed disappointment at being eliminated so early when the event is about to come to a close after 18 years. So, too, did Jana Novotna, the second seed and winner of the event for the past two years, who was unable to combat the effects of a virus and the attacking style of a Dutch opponent, Miriam Oremans, who won, 6-4, 6-0.

Graf, who was denied the opportunity to find her rhythm after taking a break from tournaments to rest her ailing back, offered no excuses and gave de Swardt the highest praise: "For the first one and a half sets, it was the best that a woman has ever played against me." Did that include Monica Seles, Graf's last opponent, with whom she shares the world No 1 ranking? "For the first one and a half sets, yes.''

During that magical period, the 24-year-old from Johannesburg gave an almost flawless display of fierce, accurate stroke play and attacking flair. "Whatever I hit went in," she marvelled. Until that is, she had a break point to lead 4-0 in the second set. Graf saved it with a trademark forehand, and produced another to revive her prospects by breaking de Swardt in the next game.

Having levelled the match, Graf appeared about to take control when de Swardt missed a volley to present her with a break point in the opening game of the final set. It was then that the South African conjured a stroke of boldness rarely seen from Graf's opponents, rescuing the situation with an ace off a second serve.

The match swiftly drifted away from Graf after she twice double-faulted and then steered a forehand over the baseline to offer de Swardt the chance to break in the second game. The South African converted with a low backhand volley, and swept into a 5-0 lead before Graf could respond to avoid a whitewash.

While the potency of de Swardt's performance surprised Graf, she had anticipating a difficult encounter, remembering her only previous match against the South African at Wimbledon in 1992, the German winning 7-5 in the third set.

Graf emphasised that she was as healthy as possible for someone with a chronic back injury, and said her form had not been affected by the troubles back home, where her father is in prison, accused of evading tax on her earnings. "The only problem was on the court today," she said.

De Swardt, in her moment of triumph, expressed sympathy for Graf. "I feel really bad for her," she said. "I don't know if I could play tennis if that was going on with me. I respect her for trying to play and felt very sorry for what she's going through.''

Graf intends to go directly to the United States to prepare for a tournament in Philadelphia on 6 November, ahead of the WTA Tour Championships in New York on 13 November.

Although in need of as much match play as possible, she will resist joining Seles in the Oakland event of 30 October. "That would mean playing three tournaments in a row, and I can't do that any more," Graf said. It was the saddest comment of the day.
 
#5,802 ·
Graf succumbs to greatest humiliation - Tennis
Outside pressures take heavy toll as German slumps to unexpected defeat

The Times
London, England
Thursday, October 19, 1995
Stuart Jones, Tennis Correspondent

STEFFI GRAF came to Brighton, a quiet backwater of a women's tournament, to escape from a relentless hounding from the German media. She described the visit to the south coast as ''a little holiday". It ended yesterday with the biggest humiliation of her career.

Unrecognisable from the woman who had collected the championships at the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open, where she last played six weeks ago, she was knocked out by an undistinguished, though talented, qualifier. The ignominy was inflicted by Mariaan de Swardt, a burly and bespectacled 24-year-old from South Africa.

Not since she was beaten in the same indoor arena by Jo Durie a decade ago has Graf yielded to an opponent ranked outside the world's top 50. She was then aged 16, two years away from claiming her first grand slam tournament and three years before she became officially rated as the best player in the world.

Graf had since suffered a mere 16 losses [sic] and a curiously symmetrical ring surrounds the two imposed this year. The other, at the Canadian Open in Toronto, was also at the hands of a South African, Amanda Coetzer, and also in the second round after Graf had received a bye.

This time, indisputably, there were cruelly extenuating circumstances. For the last two months, Graf has become increasingly embroiled in the case concerning the alleged tax evasion of her father, who is being held in a remand prison in Germany and whom she has been allowed to see only once.

Either directly or indirectly, she has been mentioned virtually daily on the front pages of German newspapers. Their representatives pursued her to Brighton, which she had imagined might be a safe, albeit temporary, haven during a period she confessed has been the unhappiest of her life.

She did not hide behind excuses, even though she played as poorly as anyone could remember. Instead, she paid a dignified and startlingly generous tribute to de Swardt as she faced a phalanx of interrogators, gathered in unprecedented numbers for the press conference.

Lights, cameras, reaction. ''For a set and a half, that was the best any woman has ever played against me," she declared. Better, that is, than Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, Monica Seles, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario or Conchita Martinez. ''I couldn't do any more than I did. I didn't think that I was going to lose, but I knew that it might happen. There is nothing that I can blame it on. I practised more than enough and I didn't feel nervous on court." In that case, appearances were deceptive.

She averaged more than a double fault per service game in the first set, conceded seven successive games and was heading towards a calamitous defeat in straight sets within an hour. She was full of the hesitation, doubt and diffidence that she habitually instils in opponents.

On the point of falling 0-4 down in the second set, she rallied to take six successive games, but yielded six of the next seven to go out 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in an hour and a half. Her run of 30 successive wins at Brighton, including six titles, was brought to a swift conclusion.

She was asked what she might do now to relax. ''Relax? I don't know about that," she replied. She intends to compete in Philadelphia and New York, dismissing the possibility of playing in Oakland as well. She disclosed that she is physically incapable of taking part in three consecutive events. Her future, already in doubt because of a persistent and chronic back complaint, will continue to be the subject of speculation for as long as her father faces the threat of long-term incarceration.

De Swardt packs a heavy punch, once hitting an ace on a second serve with the use of the shoulder that required surgery last year. Her fifth win of the week, which will appreciably improve her present ranking of No54, took her into the last eight.

As the top half of the draw lost the top seed, so the bottom half lost the No2 seed. Jana Novotna, complaining of influenza, conceded the last ten games to go out to Miriam Oremans, 6-4, 6-0. The curtain seems to have fallen prematurely on the last tournament at Brighton, which closes on Sunday.
 
#5,803 ·
Graf suffers second defeat of the year
October 19, 1995
The Age

Brighton, England, Thursday.

Joint world No. 1 Steffi Graf crashed out of the International Women's tournament to South African Mariaan de Swardt yesterday but refused to blame the defeat on her much-publicised tax and injury problems.

Top seed Graf joined second-seeded defending champion Jana Novotna as a second-round casualty. The Czech had already slumped 6-4, 6-0 to Holland's Miriam Oremans.

Graf bowed out 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in only her second defeat of the year, her other loss being to another South African, Amanda Coetzer in Toronto in August.

De Swardt, rated 54 in the world and a qualifier in this tournament, is the lowest-ranked player to defeat Graf since Britain's Jo Durie at the same event 11 years ago.

The well-built, blonde South African looked the likely winner throughout while Graf looked slow and short of ideas.

Graf said she would have liked a different opponent for her first match. ''I would have preferred someone who plays from the base-line to get into a rhythm," Graf confessed, while refusing to blame her defeat upon off-court distractions.

AUSTRALIA'S Mark Philippoussis has upset Dutch player Richard Krajicek 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 7-5 in his first match of the $760, 000 Marlboro tennis championship in Hong Kong.

It was the Australian's second victory over Krajicek in consecutive weeks. Philippoussis also beat him en route to the final of a Tokyo tournament last week, where he lost to Michael Chang.

Philippoussis' ranking leapt from 60 to 32 after that effort.

Philippoussis, from Melbourne, plays his final group match against American Richey Reneberg and is now a favorite to reach the semi-finals.

AFTER a hard-fought battle against Belgian Dick Norman, Australia's Michael Tebbutt has reached the final eight of the Salem Open tennis tournament in Beijing.

Tebbutt lost the first set when Norman blitzed him 7-0 in a tiebreak but squared the match in taking the second set 6-2 and then claimed victory with a 7-2 tiebreak success in the third.

FORMER Wimbledon champion Pat Cash, 30, appears certain to be granted a wildcard into January's Australian Open despite his continuing battle with form and injury.

Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee said organisers would start considering wildcards requests next month and Cash had ''very strong claims".

TOP SEED Thomas Muster of Austria dropped a set in disposing of American MaliVai Washington 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 to reach the second round of the CA Trophy men's indoor tennis tournament in Vienna.

THE Croatian squad of Goran Ivanisevic and Iva Majoli has been named as top seed for the Hopman Cup, to be held in Perth from 31 December.

Richard Krajicek and Brenda Schultz-McCarthy of the Netherlands, are next.

Australia's Mark Philippoussis and Nicole Bradtke have been seeded sixth.
 
#5,804 ·
Here it is raining anvils, and the only thing that piques Steffi's public anger is the media saying Opel "withdrew" the contract. Extra credit for using one of her standard comedic techniques: The splitting of hairs. "They did not withdraw the contract. They declined to renew the contract. Get it right."

Graf's Mask Falls As She Loses One For Her Father
By Ian Thomsen
October 19, 1995
New York Times

BRIGHTON, England— Suddenly her problems seemed very real. The only way most of us know world No. 1 Steffi Graf is by the tennis theater she provides, clinically and with little editorial comment. Then on Wednesday she lost to somebody named Mariaan de Swardt.

The score was 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. Six to one. Her opponent was ranked 54th in the world, the lowest of the 17 players who have beaten Graf in the last 10 years. The opponent, a large woman, had not played much this year while recuperating from shoulder surgery two years ago.

Not so long after her problems had been made clear, Graf said, "I think she is the best woman player I have ever played against."

A few listeners reacted as if Graf had just pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Just so there was no doubt, Graf said, "I said that she was the best woman who has ever played against me."

Better than Monica Seles? Chris Evert? Mariaan de Swardt, a 24-year-old South African, winner of $364,136 lifetime, was better than Martina Navratilova?

"I'm talking about the first one and a half sets," Graf said in slight retreat. "I'm not talking about the end."

She was trying to rationalize the irrational result in the language of tennis. This, as Freud might have said, was about her father.

Peter Graf has been living in a prison cell in Mannheim, Germany, since early August, suspected of hiding — with some official permission, maybe — huge chunks of the enormous salary that he began driving his daughter to win when she was 4. This month Graf was questioned by investigators for seven hours.

There has been speculation in Germany that she will be arrested. It is being said that Graf wasn't aware of her father's tax schemes, which is more than possible. Nevertheless, she is not what her game has always pledged her to be: a professional unaffected by the life she has been able to keep private.

"No, I think I was really on the court today," Graf said when asked, essentially, to admit that she is worried. "There is nothing I can blame it on, nothing at all."

But it must have been upsetting that one of her major sponsors, Opel, withdrew its $1.2 million in annual support this week?

"It's not 'withdraw,' " Graf said, the only time she was riled during a 10-minute group interview. "It ends this year after 10 years. They are not continuing it, which happens with sponsors."

"Definitely, we feel really bad for her," De Swardt said. "I don't know if I could play tennis if what was going on with her was going on with me. I respect her for playing now, and I think the majority of players feel really sorry for her and what she's going through. We're trying to give her words of support, to let her know we're there for her, and that this whole nightmare will blow over soon."

Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of the afternoon was how quickly —in just 87 minutes of play — the two players became familiar to those watching. The setting was hardly comfortable — muffled acoustics, grimly yellowing fluorescent lights, and a huge black curtain along one side of the court. Another match was being played in the same room, though few of the 2,000 or so here were paying it any attention.

Before the match, De Swardt complained about the camera flashes that chase celebrities everywhere. She was buoyed by the memory of her three-set loss to Graf at Wimbledon three years ago, but everyone else knew better: Graf had won 30 straight matches at the Brighton International and six titles.

But the first point was an ace by De Swardt. In the sixth game Graf double-faulted twice as De Swardt broke her in love. De Swardt won seven consecutive games, going a break up in the second set. Suddenly, although she might have looked ordinary, she was playing enviable tennis— smiling at Graf after an exchange of winners off the net. However, for those familiar with the German way, this cast the fourth game of the second set as the probable turning point in Graf's favor.

Women's tennis is all about Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. It is in orbit around them. It is about them in the same lavish, worshipful and exorbitant way that soap operas revolve around rich and beautiful victims. Except that Seles and Graf rarely lose, except in parts of the plot they cannot get their rackets on.

In this case, when the opponent started smiling, enjoying herself, she seemed to be displaying the weakness Graf likes to exploit most.

As it turned out, De Swardt went on to win six of the seven games that matter most. This is the winner's third tournament indoors, ever. Afterward, true to her character, Graf said, "I don't think I was nervous on the court." But there was no other way to explain the new sympathy of her audience.
 
#5,805 ·
Let's summarize: Her father was being held in jail without bond on suspicions of tax evasion; the guy her father hired as a "tax adviser" was likewise held in jail without bond; and there was no way to pretend that the prosecutors were mistaken or that Peter had simply misunderstood or had been misled about the legality of what he was doing; it was possible that her agent was in on the scheme; it was possible many politicians, senior bureaucrats, and high-ranking corporate sponsor types were in on the scheme; she owed the government a lot of money, but still didn't know where the bulk of her fortune was or if it was even recoverable; she herself had been questioned by the prosecutors twice, with one session being on the Friday before the tournament started; she was in the process of signing with a new business/financial management firm; she had just lost a major sponsor, largely because of her own personal principles; she probably wasn't feeling top-notch physically; she hadn't had a lot of time on the practice court. Yes, maybe she should have stayed home. But women's tennis had suffered from too much of that already in general, and the WTA needed her to play this specific tournament.

It hasn't been fun for Graf
She loses in first round; accounting firm takes over her finances.

The Kansas City Star
Thursday, October 19, 1995
From Star News Services

BRIGHTON, England - Top-seeded Steffi Graf wanted to play in the Brighton International tennis tournament. Then she didn't. Then she decided she would after all, just to get away from her tax problems in Germany.

Maybe she should have stayed home.

In her first match since winning the U.S. Open last month, Graf was beaten Wednesday by South African qualifier Mariann de Swardt 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.

The loss was only the second of the year for Graf, whose previous defeat was against Amanda Coetzer, also a South African, in August in Toronto.

Graf entered the Brighton tournament to escape the pressures of her tax troubles in Germany. Her father has been in jail for two months, and she is under investigation for alleged tax evasion.

While she was in Brighton, Sport-Bild, a weekly German magazine, broke the news that she turned over management of her finances to the international accounting and consulting firm of Price Waterhouse.

Price Waterhouse will manage Steffi Graf's taxable income in Germany, the magazine said. A Price Waterhouse spokesman in Berlin confirmed the company is working with Graf, but declined to elaborate, citing German privacy laws.

The week hasn't gone Graf's way. Opel, the German subsidiary of General Motors, announced Monday that it would not renew its four-year sponsorship contract with Graf, worth about $1.2 million a year.

Sport-Bild said Opel had been considering dropping Graf before her tax problems. Other major sponsors have stuck with her so far.

If the magazine is correct, Graf's days may improve in the near-future. Sport-Bild also said she may be cleared soon.

Elsewhere in tennis -- SAMPRAS BEATS OLD NEMESIS: Top-seeded Pete Sampras has had trouble with Frenchman Guy Forget over the years, but he beat him 6-3, 6-4 in the opening round of the Lyon Open in France. Sampras, a three-time winner of the indoor tournament, has a 4-4 career mark against Forget. The last time they met, Sampras needed two tie breakers to win the final of the Queens Club tournament just before Wimbledon. Sampras went on and won Wimbledon for the third time.

Forget defeated Sampras in the final of the 1991 Paris Open, then defeated him again a month later in Lyon when France surprised the United States in the final of the Davis Cup.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY: Mark Philippoussis, an 18-year-old Australian, stopped Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 7-5 in Philippoussis' first match at the Marlboro Championships in Hong Kong. Philippoussis also beat Krajicek on his way to the final last week in Tokyo.

MUSTER PROTECTS TOP SEEDING: Top-seeded Thomas Muster of Austria defeated American MaliVai Washington 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in the opening round of the CA Trophy indoor in Vienna, Austria. David Wheaton also lost his first-round match, beaten by Filip Dewulf of Belgium 6-2, 6-3. Muster, a clay-court specialist, complained of trouble with his left knee and conceded losing concentration in the second set. ''I'm not dissatisfied,'' Muster said. ''On the whole, I served well. ''
 
#5,806 ·
SOUTH AFRICAN THWARTS GRAF
The Times Union
Albany, NY
Thursday, October 19, 1995
Associated Press

BRIGHTON, England -- Troubled Steffi Graf, playing her first match since winning the U.S. Open last month, was beaten by South African qualifier Mariann de Swardt 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 Wednesday in the Brighton International Championships.

It was only the second defeat of the year for Graf, whose previous loss came against another South African, Amanda Coetzer, in Toronto in August.

Top-seeded Graf, who has won the Brighton tournament six times, entered the tournament to escape the pressures of her tax troubles in Germany. Her father has been in jail for two months and she is under investigation for alleged tax evasion.

Graf was unable to dominate any stage of the 1 hour, 27-minute match, and was lucky to extend the match to three sets after facing a point to go down 4-0 in the second set.

But de Swardt, who had served extremely well and troubled Graf with her aggressive play, let down long enough to allow Graf to recover and extend the match.

But, after saving a break point in the opening game of the final set, de Swardt regained the upper hand and Graf never looked capable of force a third set.

''That is the best anyone ever played against me for 1 1/2 sets,'' Graf said. ''I couldn't do more than I did.''

Defending champion and second-seeded Jana Novotna also lost, beaten 6-4, 6-0 by Miriam Oremans of the Czech Republic.

New manager for Graf: Steffi Graf, her father imprisoned on suspicion of tax evasion, has turned over management of her finances to the accounting firm Price Waterhouse, a weekly magazine said Wednesday.

The tennis star has been questioned by prosecutors in the case involving Peter Graf, who acted as his daughter's manager and was arrested in August. Sport-Bild magazine said Steffi Graf may soon be cleared.

The magazine said Price Waterhouse, one of the biggest accounting firms in the United States, will manage Steffi Graf's taxable income in Germany.

A Price Waterhouse spokesman in Berlin confirmed the company is working with Graf, but declined to elaborate, citing Germany privacy laws.

Graf's loss in England on Wednesday loss follows an announcement Monday by Opel, the German subsidiary of General Motors, that it would not renew its four-year sponsorship contract with Graf, worth some $1.2 million a year.

But Sport-Bild said Opel had already been considering dropping Graf before her tax problems.

Other major sponsors are sticking with Graf, who shares the No. 1 ranking with Monica Seles.

Graf's future tournament plans remain unknown.

Lyon Open: In Lyon, France, top-seeded Pete Sampras turned back an old nemesis, Guy Forget, 6-3, 6-4 in the opening round of the Lyon Open.

Sampras, a three-time winner of the indoor tournament, now has a 4-4 career mark against the French player. The last time they met, Sampras needed two tiebreakers to win the final of the Queens Club tournament just before Wimbledon, which Sampras won for the third time.

Two of Forget's victories over Sampras were memorable. In 1991, he beat the American in the final of the Paris Open. Then, a month later, he defeated him again in Lyon when France surprised the United States in the final of the Davis Cup.

In another opening round contest, David Prinosil of Germany upset sixth-seeded Arnaud Boetsch of France 6-2, 6-4. Boetsch won the tournament in Toulouse, France, two weeks ago and reached the semifinals in Ostrava, Czech Republic, last week.

Another French player, Cedric Pioline, made it to the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-2, victory over Spain's Thomas Carbonell.

Marlboro Championships: In Hong Kong, Mark Philippoussis, an 18-year old Australian, upset Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 7-5 in his first match at the Marlboro Championships.

Philippoussis also beat Krajicek on his way to the finals last week in Tokyo. The hard-hitting teenager climbed from No. 60 in the rankings No. 32 after that tournament.

The Australian plays his final Red Group match against Richey Reneberg and is now a favorite to reach Saturday's semifinals.
 
#5,807 ·
Steffi was always very honest (maybe even a little too honest at times :oh:) about both her own level of play & that of her opponents. Even given chronic injury, tax issues, etc, I'm inclined to believe her if she says that DeSwardt (who also ran her close at Wimby twice) played the best tennis against her.

With her big serve, booming strokes & limited movement, I imagine DeSwardt posed similar problems for Steffi that Lindsay did at times in 98/99.

Also, reading about the decline of Brighton 20 years on now seems like the first warning sign of the slow death of the European indoor swing.
 
#5,808 ·
Steffi was always very honest (maybe even a little too honest at times :oh:) about both her own level of play & that of her opponents. Even given chronic injury, tax issues, etc, I'm inclined to believe her if she says that DeSwardt (who also ran her close at Wimby twice) played the best tennis against her.

With her big serve, booming strokes & limited movement, I imagine DeSwardt posed similar problems for Steffi that Lindsay did at times in 98/99.
Yeah, Steffi's compliment was genuine if laid on a bit thick: de Swardt's level of play --and the fact that she even drew de Swardt in the first place-- was the proverbial icing on the cake. There was a great moment during their match at Wimbledon 1999, when Mariaan was bombing in serves and Steffi rolled her eyes and shook her head a little as if to say, "Why does she play like this against only me?" :lol: Maybe Mariaan needed a big-time opponent to get properly fired up (although her record against other top players isn't at all impressive). Maybe Krajicek's "lazy, fat pigs" comment fired her up (IIRC, their Wimbledon 1992 match was the day after it went public) and their next two matches just stirred her memory. In 1994, I think it was Navratilova who told her that she could be a top player if she would just get in better physical condition, and Mariaan replied that she didn't think she wanted to make that kind of sacrifice for tennis. To each her own, I guess.

Also, reading about the decline of Brighton 20 years on now seems like the first warning sign of the slow death of the European indoor swing.
I think when Steffi missed Brighton and Zurich in 1993 and 1994 (and Zurich in 1995), it hurt the European indoor autumn swing. Then again, American indoor carpet and indoor fast hardcourt tournaments had disappeared at a rapid pace, too ... but I think that was a case of oversaturation being corrected more than a lack of drawing cards.

The WTA also failed geography somewhere along the line. Even if Monica had been the type step in to fulfill field commitments, playing at Brighton would have meant flying from Florida to London to San Francisco in a little over two weeks. And I'm not sure the WTA would have waived the new public relations duty requirements for the exempt list players. The flaws in their business model were obvious.
 
#5,809 ·
Wood fails to fill void left by Graf's early exit - Tennis
The Times
London, England
Friday, October 20, 1995
Alix Ramsay

THE Brighton Centre had the air of the Mary Celeste about it yesterday. Steffi Graf had swept out of town, taking the German press corps and most of the public interest with her. And it was only the second round of the women's international tennis tournament.

Clare Wood, the British No1, was the nearest thing to a crowd-puller left, but she failed to last until teatime, going out 6-2, 7-6 to Helena Sukova, the No6 seed and beaten finalist last year. Maybe the Lawn Tennis Association's decision to sell the tournament was a wiser move than anyone had thought -- sell quick before it dies on its feet.

Wood, who lives in Brighton, will be sad to see the tournament go. ''I just think the top players are more picky about where they play and why," she said. ''When Steffi played on Wednesday the place was packed. If she was still here it would still be packed. It just shows the influence of the best players on the tournament."

Wood's influence on the Brighton wake was not quite as she had hoped. Ranked No217 in the world, the gap between her and Sukova, the No20, was made to look unbridgeable as Wood sank to 4-0 down in the first set before waking up to her task.

But even when Wood began to get into her stride, Sukova just eased away from her. ''Getting off to a 4-0 down start is not the best way to begin," she said. ''It's so difficult to break her and I was struggling even to get close."

She was also struggling to help George Hendon, the tournament director in his final fling at Brighton. The last time she played well at the event was in 1993, when Graf did not enter and she found herself at the centre of local attention. ''I thought it would be good to have a British player in the latter stages of the tournament to help George, because he's been good to me. It added a little pressure, but not too much to handle."

Pressure is not something one easily associates with British women's tennis. When the Brighton tournament first started in 1978, Sue Barker and Virginia Wade who between them had four grand-slam singles titles flew the flag for Britain. This time Wood was a wild card and Samantha Smith, beaten in the first round, was a qualifier, having just started her comeback after giving up the game altogether to go to university.

The tournament at least has one world top-ten player left in the quarter-finals. Magdalena Maleeva came back from a set down to beat Barbara Rittner 1-6, 6-4, 6-1. As the world No8, she is now the top seed left in the event. The Brighton tournament may be dead, but it is not buried quite yet.
 
#5,810 ·
Once again, I'm not sure why this was up to a "regional parlimentary inquiry commission" and not law enforcement.

Sport Briefing
October 20, 1995
The Age
Melbourne, Australia

[...]

Tennis

Graf probe opens: A regional parlimentary inquiry that could force tennis star Steffi Graf to disclose fully her financial affairs opened in Stuttgart. The 11-man commission will investigate allegations that local tax inspectors colluded with Graf, whose father and business manager Peter is accused of tax evasion on a massive scale. The commission has until the end of February to complete its inquiries before local elections in March. Graf is alleged to have paid only AUS$9.3 million on earnings of AUS$159.5 million since turning professional in 1982.

Results: HONG KONG CHAMPIONSHIP 3rd Day: Sgls: Blue Grp: S Bruguera (Sp) d J Eltingh (Neth) 6-4 6-3. Red Grp: M PHILIPPOUSSIS (AUST) d R Reneberg (US) 6-1 6-4 (Philippoussis advances to semi-finals). Gold Grp: S Edberg (Swe) d P Haarhuis (Ned) 6-7 (2-7) 6-3 6-3 (Edberg advances to semi-finals).

SALEM ATP OPEN (prefix denotes seeding): Sgls: Rnd 2: 4- S Matsuoka (Jap) d S Lareau (Can) 6-3 7-6 (9-7); 6-S DRAPER (AUST) d H Dreekmann (Ger) 4-6 6-3 6-4; 1-M Chang (US) d J Bates (GB) 6-3 6-2; G Pozzi (It) d T Ho (Ch) 7-5 6-2.

LYON MEN'S GRAND PRIX (prefix denotes seeding): 2nd Rnd: D Prinosil (Ger) d J Hlasek (Switz) 6-1 6-4; 2-Y Kafelnikov (Rus) d H Holm (Swe) 7-5 6-3; W Ferreira (Sth Afr) d M Damm (Czech) 6-7 (4/7) 6-3 6-1; 1-P Sampras (US) d R Agenor (Haiti) 6-4 6-1; P RAFTER (AUST) d J P Fleurian 6-3 7-6 (7/3); M Huard (Fr) d 7-G Rusedski (GB) 6-4 6-3.

BRIGHTON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT (prefix denotes seeding): 2nd Rnd: 6-H Sukova (Czech Rep) d C Wood (GB) 6- 2 7-6 (7-4); B Paulus (Austria) d I Spirlea (Rom) 7-6 (7-5) 6-4; 3-M Maleeva (Bulg) d B Rittner (Ger) 1-6 6-4 6-1; 4-M Joe Fernandez (US) d K Nowak (Pol) 6-1, 6-1.

AUSTRIAN CA TROPHY MEN'S TOURNAMENT (prefix denotes seeding): 2nd Rnd: J Tarango (US) d B Steven (NZ) 6-1 7-5; F Dewulf (Belg) d G Schaller (Austria) 6-3 6-4; T WOODBRIDGE (AUST) d 5-J Siemerink (Neth) 6-4 7-5; 3-M Stich (Ger) d T Johansson (Swe) 7-6 6-4; 1-T Muster (Austria) d M WOODFORDE (AUST) 6-3 6-4.

[...]
 
#5,811 ·
Tennis: Graf tackles her tax as sponsors rally round
The Independent
London, England
Saturday, October 21, 1995
JOHN ROBERTS reports from Brighton

Steffi Graf, whose father is in prison accused of tax fraud of tens of millions of marks on her earnings, has engaged Price Waterhouse, one of the world's biggest financial consultants.

"This includes assisting her in all tax matters relating to the current investigation and representing her interests with the tax authorities," a spokesman at the company's Berlin office said. Price Waterhouse's other clients include Lloyds Bank, House of Fraser, Burtons, Mirror Group, Guinness and Esso.

Graf was interrogated twice by the German tax authorities before competing in the international women's tournament here this week, a visit which ended abruptly when the 26-year-old Wimbledon champion was eliminated in her opening match by Mariaan de Swardt, a South African qualifier, ranked No 54 in the world.

Although Graf will lose her pounds 700,000 sponsorship deal with Opel, the car company, at the end of the year, she has been promised continued annual support by Adidas sportswear (pounds 900,000), Rexona deodorants (pounds 400,000), Wilson rackets (pounds 300,000) and Toa racket strings (pounds 65,000), who have all added to her career prize money of more than pounds 11m from tennis. "We think Steffi is a victim in this affair," a Rexona spokesman said.

The 18th and last Brighton tournament has rumbled on in Graf's absence. De Swardt treated us to another impressive demonstration of her might before losing in the quarter-finals yesterday, breaking the strap in the centre of the net when double-faulting in the concluding game of her match against Kristie Boogert, of the Netherlands.

De Swardt amused the crowd by flexing her muscles while the court maintenance crew repaired the damage. But the tale of the tape did not have a happy outcome for the South African, who slipped from 30-15 to lose the contest.

Boogert skipped for joy after completing a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 victory with a forehand winner. In the semi-finals today, Boogert plays the American fourth seed, Mary Joe Fernandez, a 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 winner against Barbara Paulus, of Austria.

Magdalena Maleeva, the third seed, appears to have devised a personal handicapping system, twice recovering from opening sets of 1-6 en route to the semi-finals. Having turned events in her favour when playing Germany's Barbara Rittner on Thursday, the Bulgarian made a similar comeback against Helena Sukova yesterday, defeating the sixth seed, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3.

Although no longer troubled by a back injury which threatened her participation here, Maleeva's serve is suffering from a lack of practice.

[] Michael Stich, the German player ranked No 12 in the world, was carried off the court on a stretcher after tearing a ligament in his left ankle at the CA Trophy men's indoor tournament in Vienna yesterday.
 
#5,813 ·
I agree that there was a match-up issue, even if they only had three encounters. I think I used to liken Mariaan's threat to Steffi similar to Lori McNeil's because both would attack the net. Yes, Lori was a lot more agile, but still, many in the tennis world thought one way to beat Steffi was to get to the net, make Steffi hit backhands, and be proficient up there. Even Pam Shriver beat Steffi three times and took her to three sets three times in a total of twelve matches.

When I used to really follow the tour, I was saddened by the demise of the fall indoor season. So many of my favorites (Steffi, Iva Majoli, Maggie Maleeva, Jana Novotna) did well, and I felt like the events were standards and made more geographic sense (I think for 1996-1997 it was Oakland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and then the year-end event in NYC once European events were done) than in later years. I don't know much about the current tournaments post-US Open, but I think few or none of them are indoor, and that is a shame. It used to be that February and the fall had plenty of indoor events, so players who thrived at them could get good wins, boost their rankings, etc. Now, I don't believe the indoor surface is used much at all, and when it is, I think it is not the "Supreme" surface of many past indoor events, so- again- the diversity of surfaces has shrunk.
 
#5,815 ·
Come on, Simon! One of her nicknames in German (albeit not yet acquired in the timeframe) roughly translates to "Roly-poly Woman."

Graf's fall from grace and grandeur
Simon O'Hagan in Brighton wonders if time is running out for a court queen

The Independent on Sunday
London, England
Sunday, October 22, 1995
Simon O'Hagan

AS Mary Joe Fernandez and Amanda Coetzer were yesterday winning through to today's final of the 18th and last women's indoor tournament here, the player who might have given the event some grandeur as it faded into tennis history was looking similarly bereft. Time has run out for Brighton. Could the same be true of Steffi Graf?

After Graf had been bludgeoned to defeat by the South African Mariaan de Swardt last week, she had a choice of four places to which she could retreat to lick her wounds. In Germany, there is the parental home in Bruhl - if that is not a misnomer given her father's present status as an inmate of Mannheim jail - but it would have afforded her little protection from a German media that has feasted on the scandal surrounding Graf's financial affairs. Nor would the Heidelberg apartment that Graf co-owns with her racing-driver boyfriend Michael Bartels.

Then there is the loft in New York, where Graf has said she is happiest because it is possible for her to walk the streets like any normal person. That must have tempted her. But her destination after making a rapid exit from Brighton on Wednesday night was Boca Raton, Florida, where the advantages are twofold: inaccessibility to outsiders, and unlimited scope for practice on the courts of the private tennis club adjacent to the Graf residence.

There is a dilemma here, however, in a life suddenly full of them. Graf's chronic back injury has forced her to limit her appearances - she has played only nine tournaments this year - and how much she prepares for them. As she said last week, "It used to be that I had one or two matches to get into a tournament. But that doesn't really happen any more. You've got to be right there from the start. I've done it a few times this year, but you can't expect it all the time."

While the prospect of further early-round exits is hardly likely to appeal to one of the greatest champions tennis has known, Graf is having to live with an even deeper anxiety over what may happen as a result of the German authorities' investigation into her taxes - to her as well as to her father. She denied that factors beyond the court had affected her performance against De Swardt, but it was a claim that carried no more conviction than her assertion that for a set and a half De Swardt had "played the best a woman has ever played against me".

What there is little doubt about is that Graf is at a watershed in her career. She is 26, with nearly 14 years on the professional circuit behind her, the last nine of them as either the No 1 or No 2 player in the world. For more than a year she has lived with physical pain, and the knowledge that it will never go away. In spite of that, she has performed remarkably, winning all three of the 1995 Grand Slam tournaments that she entered, culminating in her defeat of the resurgent Monica Seles in the US Open final at Flushing Meadow last month.

That, Graf said, was the biggest of any of the 18 Grand Slams she had won. Against her fiercest rival, there was a point to be proved like no other before. By achieving it, Graf lifted her reputation into a new dimension altogether.

For Graf, that is a source of huge satisfaction as she contemplates her future - and, according to a German source close to her, she will be thinking much longer-term than the Philadelphia tournament and the WTA Championships in New York that come the week after. Seles, if she wants, can be the game's dominant force until well into the next century. How long will Graf be prepared to suffer in the battle to keep up?

This year, injury forced her to miss the Australian Open. Then came the painstaking process of carefully rationed activity that, against all the odds, led to triumphs in the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Only Graf knows how much that took out of her, and whether she can face it all over again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

When, two months ago in Toronto, Graf made as premature an exit from the Canadian Open as she did from this tournament, Coetzer was the woman responsible. The 5ft 2in South African went on to lose in the final to Seles, but today, her 24th birthday, she has the chance to go one better and win what would be her first title this year and her eighth in all.

Coetzer, ranked 23 in the world, beat the eighth-ranked Maggie Maleeva of Bulgaria 6-3 6-3 in much the better of yesterday's semi-finals. Generating a surprising amount of power on her groundstrokes, Coetzer was quicker, more versatile and had an edge to her game that her opponent's lacked.

Maleeva was let down by her serve, while the big forehand on which she was reliant was rarely as accurate as she needed it to be. She was still tough to put away even after Coetzer had broken to go 4-2 up in the second set. The next game Coetzer only won after five deuces, and when serving at 5-3 she squandered five match points before producing a winning forehand pass.

In the other semi-final Kristie Boogert of Holland took a time-out after twisting her ankle, and Fernandez was troubled by a torn toe-nail. In the end it was the more experienced American who kept mind and body together the better, coming through to win an error-strewn match 3-6 6-1 6-3.
 
#5,816 ·
Steffi Graf essentially calls peak Mariaan de Swardt the greatest of all time; de Swardt replies: "That's pretty nice." :lol:

Also worth mentioning: From that loss to Durie in 1985 until the one against de Swardt in 1995, Steffi was undefeated indoors in Europe.

Tennis: Graf's shock defeat taxes her resolve - Brighton International Tournament
Richard Williams questions whether the demoralised German still has a future in the game

The Guardian
London, England
October 19, 1995
RICHARD WILLIAMS

LOSERS always look terrible, but there was a specially distressing quality to Steffi Graf's appearance after her defeat in the first round of the Brighton International tournament yesterday. She looked sick and tired.

It had been 10 years since her last defeat in the event. Back in 1985, Jo Durie eliminated her. That's how long ago it was. At the time, Durie was ranked No. 52 in the world. Yesterday Graf, who has won the title six times, was beaten in the first round by a woman occupying the 54th position in the WTA list.

Beaten? She was hammered. Mariaan de Swardt, a 24-year-old heavyweight from Johannesburg, battered her into submission in 87 minutes, taking the match 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. There were no ifs or buts about this one. Afterwards, the only significant questions concerned Graf's future in tennis.

This season she has won three Grand Slam tournaments, two of them - Wimbledon, against Sanchez Vicario, and the US Open, against Seles - in the most heroic fashion. But those triumphs have been achieved against the odds and despite a series of enforced lay-offs which have prevented her from finding a consistent vein of form, forcing her to use reserves she may not have known she possessed.

Now her father is in Mannheim jail awaiting the outcome of investigations into his tax affairs, her own financial position is under scrutiny, and a recent foot injury combined with her long-standing back problem has added physical pain to mental stress.

In Brighton yesterday no one would have mistaken her for a happy person. It did not take an unduly fevered imagination to see her restlessness on court as a chafing as much against unseen enemies as against the very physical presence of her opponent.

As she preceded De Swardt on to the carpet court, making her way past a thicket of photographers and television crews, she had not played a competitive match since the final at Flushing Meadow more than five weeks ago. She and her opponent had met only once before, in the third round at Wimbledon three years ago, when the South African took the first set before falling to an opponent heading for the fourth of her six singles titles at the All England Club.

Yesterday De Swardt, who stands 5ft 8in and weighs 149lb, was in the mood to make the most of whatever advantages fate had sent her. She won the first point of the match by slamming a clean ace down the centre line, and with her next delivery almost shattered a ball-girl's wrist. And at two games all she turned on the power.

For the next half-hour she looked the complete tennis player. Breaking Graf for the first time in the sixth game, she took the next half-dozen in a mighty roll. Her service was unpredictable in direction and implacable in accuracy and force. Her forehands would have pierced armour, and were guided by an inspired sense of where her opponent would not be. Her timing was good enough to wrong-foot Graf over and over again.

As the first set ended, another pair of first-round opponents began to knock up on the adjacent No. 2 court. Those with a feeling for auguries noted that one of the players, Amanda Coetzer, was the last player to beat the German in any tournament - in her first match at the Canadian Open in August, again after a five-week lay-off.

Down 2-6, 0-3, Graf finally reminded herself of who and where she was. She had to come from a awfully long way back, in mental as well as scoreboard terms, but it was a measure of her spirit that there was never a moment when a tactical retreat seemed like an option.

As she converted her second break point of the match to take a 5-4 lead in the set, there was a widespread sense of relief. A minute later, four consecutive errors by De Swardt had allowed her to level the match.

The South African rocked, but she did not fall. A screaming forehand down the line gave her the first game of the final set, and when two double faults put Graf in trouble, De Swardt nailed the next game by increasing the tempo of a long rally, converting the break point with a flourish that left her opponent terminally winded.

'For the first set and a half,' Graf said afterwards, 'I think it was the best a woman has played against me.' We asked her to repeat that, and she did.

'She really said that?' De Swardt responded later. 'That's pretty nice.' It was, and De Swardt's display deserved an accolade, yet the suspicion lingers that Graf's words were also intended to buoy up her own morale. She told us that what she needed was more games, and announced her intention to be at the Philadelphia tournament next month, prior to the WTA Tour championships in New York, but there was no optimism in her eyes as she left the hall last night.

So perhaps we have seen the last of this wonderful athlete on a British court. But the player who stumbled out of the tournament yesterday was not the real Steffi Graf. Whatever happens next, that one will live on in our memories, an imperishable standard of her sport.
 
#5,817 ·
A proper burial for the Brighton tournament. Of character-revealing interest: in the middle of the 1995 USO, with all her personal turmoil and stress, Steffi Graf took the time to empathize with Mary Joe Fernandez and her struggle with perpetual illnesses/injuries.

Tennis: Variety of Fernandez settles the finale
The Independent
London, England
Monday, October 23, 1995
JOHN ROBERTS reports from Brighton

The final women's international indoor tournament to be held here for the foreseeable future ended yesterday with the American, Mary Joe Fernandez, receiving pounds 50,000 and lifting the singles trophy, the last in a line of Virginia Ruzici, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Sue Barker, Sylvia Hanika, Steffi Graf, Gabriela Sabatini and Jana Novotna.

The tournament has been sold overseas because of lack of sponsorship, which is not unrelated to the difficulty in attracting leading players in recent years. Fernandez, who defeated the South African Amanda Coetzer, 6-4, 7-5, is the only winner to have entered with a wild card, and she admitted that she would not have come had she been fit to play in Zurich or Filderstadt in the weeks prior Brighton. The autumn schedule is difficult, Fernandez pointed out, "and the last event in Europe is tough to play''.

A semi-finalist in 1992, but eliminated in her opening match a year ago, Fernandez has suffered more from injuries and illnesses than the majority of players on the WTA Tour. She recently discovered that she has a type of asthma, and this event is her first since the US Open in September.

"During the Open," Fernandez said, "Steffi [Graf] came up to me and said she really understands now what I go through, the frustration of having to stop and start again without being able to practise." Brighton was also the scene of Graf's first venture on a court since the US Open, after resting her suspect back and facing tax officials, and the six-times champion was swept aside in her opening match.

Fernandez, seeded No 4 and projected to meet Graf in the semi-finals, made the most of the opportunity created by the Wimbledon champion's abrupt departure. Coetzer, the seventh seed, strode through a lower half of the draw lightened by the early elimination of Jana Novotna, who had won the title in the previous two years.

Although Coetzer had lots of happy returns on her 24th birthday, her serve proved less stable than her opponent's in a final which produced 14 breaks in 22 games. There were seven breaks in the opening set, Coetzer holding once, after Fernandez had created two points for 5-1. The American's double-faults helped to prolong the set.

Coetzer broke in the opening game of the second set, but was unable to build on the success, Fernandez being the first to hold in the fifth game. Even when Coetzer had a chance to level the match after breaking for 5-4, she netted a backhand to lose a rally on the crucial point of the 10th game.

Although errors predominated, Fernandez at least offered a wider variety of stokes, frequently teasing her opponent with drop shots to break the routine.
 
#5,818 ·
Pretty sure the figures given in the "chart" at the bottom are incorrect. Very doubtful that her "Tennis equipment contracts" less Adidas almost equaled her "Adidas + Opel" contracts. Things were probably being double counted, which once again makes any criticism/skepticism from the media about her lack of financial awareness extra laughable.

Trouble in Another Court
Did tennis star - and millionaire - Steffi Graf avoid paying the high taxes her countrymen do?

Newsweek
Monday, October 23, 1995
BILL POWELL With STEFAN THEIL in Berlin

STEFFI GRAF HAS NEVER FELT PRESsure like this. Not at Wimbledon, where this year she won again, for the sixth time; nor at the U.S. Open, where a month ago she grittily held off the comeback of rival Monica Seles. That, after all, is tennis court pressure. This is real-life pressure: last August, German authorities arrested her father, Peter, on suspicion of helping his daughter evade millions of Deutsche marks in taxes. A month later the family tax adviser was in jail too. Then, two weeks ago, Graf herself was questioned for eight hours in her home state of Baden-Wurttemberg, as authorities tried to determine what role, if any, she played in the alleged scheme.

Is her arrest the next, inevitable step? Last weekend the weekly Der Spiegel quoted a Mannheim judge as saying he had told the chief investigator in the Graf case that he expected "another request for an arrest warrant." That apparently referred to "Steffi," as virtually all Germans call her. Last Monday Mannheim's chief public prosecutor contradicted the Spiegel story. "We have no plans to issue [another] arrest warrant," he said. But that slightly hedged statement has not quieted speculation that Steffi, along with her father, may yet face formal charges.

If not quite the spectacle of the O.J. trial, the Graf case has nonetheless riveted Germany, for reasons that transcend celebrity. It divides those who stand by a woman who may be the country's most beloved athlete from the growing number of citizens infuriated by Germany's confiscatory rates of taxation - and the schemes the rich and powerful use to avoid them. Graf herself has professed absolute ignorance of her monetary affairs. "I have little to do with it," she has said. "It is not normal that I go and get the check at tournaments." But German authorities allege that her father concocted schemes that allowed the Grafs to remain in high-tax Germany while paying just a sliver of what they might otherwise have owed on his daughter's mountainous earnings (chart).

One of the ironies of the case is that the decision to stay home helped Graf become so popular among her countrymen. Her male counterpart, Boris Becker, moved years ago to Monaco, a tax haven. But now state officials in Baden-Wurttemberg, where the Grafs file taxes, are investigating at what price that loyalty came. They want to know whether Peter Graf struck a deal with politicians or other authorities in which he agreed to have his daughter remain in Germany in return for special arrangements on her tax bill. The Grafs filed no tax forms from 1989 to 1992, according to investigators. They just paid lump sums that amounted to 5 to 10 percent of her income, depending on the year - well below the 56 percent top tax rate that prevails in Germany, the sources say. Last year alone, according to Der Spiegel, Graf funneled some 32 million marks to a variety of offshore tax havens. Last week, the likelihood of a sweetheart deal between the state authorities and Peter Graf prompted the government of Baden-Wurttemberg to form a special parliamentary committee to investigate the charges.

Sources close to the Grafs insist that Steffi's plea of ignorance is real. They point out that she started winning regularly when she was just 16; her life has been devoted to little beside tennis. She also has had an intense and at times tortuous relationship with her father. He was famously protective of her, traveling on the tennis tour until, in the mid-1980s, the former used-car salesman started to manage his daughter's money. Friends say the family gave him that job partly to give him another focus; his constant presence was smothering Steffi. Then, in 1990, Peter Graf had a widely publicized affair with a model that is said to have hurt Steffi deeply.

Rumors about Graf's imminent retirement - all unconfirmed - now swirl in Germany. But her victory last month over Seles will likely be her last until the tax case is over - and in that, too, there is some irony. The man who stabbed Monica Seles in the back in 1993 was a German law was eventually sentenced to nothing more than extensive psychiatric treatment. If Peter Graf - and his famous daughter - are ever convicted of massive tax fraud, they could serve 10 years in prison. In Germany, it's better to be crazy than to mess with the state.

That's a Nice Racket

Since turning pro, Graf has earned millions on and off the court. But did she pay the German government its fair share, estimated at more than $50 million? Here's how she earned her loot:

EARNINGS IN MILLIONS

Tournament winnings $18

Tennis equipment contracts 33

Sponsorship deals with Adidas, Opel and others 38

Appearances, investments and other misc. 35

Total 124
 
#5,819 ·
TENNIS STAR GRAF MAKES $14 MILLION TAX PAYMENT
The Plain Dealer
Thursday, October 26, 1995
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN -- A big chunk of Steffi Graf's supposedly missing fortune has been found, and $14.3 million (20 million Marks) has been deposited with tax authorities, the tennis star's lawyer said yesterday.

A week earlier, lawyer Peter Danckert said his defense team was trying to locate money that Graf's father, Peter Graf, reportedly had sent abroad in a series of transfers before his arrest in August. Danckert said in a statement it had taken substantial effort to track down her millions in overseas accounts. He did now say where or how the money was located.

Danckert, quoted by the German sports news agency SID, said yesterday the "largest part" of the missing money had been recovered, and $10.7 million of it had been deposited against future tax bills.

In addition, $3.6 million from Steffi Graf's accounts was deposited with the authority in Schwetzingen, a city in southwest Germany, which deals with her taxes, Danckert said.

Danckert said he intended to apply next week to end the prosecutors' investigation of Graf, who is suspected along with her father of failing to report some $35 million of income.

Graf, 26, the world's No. 1 female tennis player, has been questioned twice by prosecutors but has not been threatened with arrest. She says she entrusted her father with her financial management and didn't know where her money was.

Her father has been held without bond since Aug. 2 and reportedly refuses to cooperate with investigators. Yesterday, however, Peter Graf, 57, dismissed one laywer, and another of his defense team, Peter Slania, said Graf will start talking in the coming days.

The Grafs' tax adviser, Joachim Eckart, also is held without bond.

Last week, the General Motors subsidiary Opel said it would end its 10-year sponsorship agreement with Graf when a contract expires at the end of this year. Opel was paying Graf $1.2 million this year to advertise Opel cars.

Opel said it didn't approve of the Grafs' defense strategy and couldn't get an explanation of an apparent "shell company" in the Netherlands into which the company paid its sponsorship money.

Graf's tax woes have had a political backlash in her home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the finance ministry is under attack and accused of giving the Grafs easy treatment rather than risk her moving to a tax haven like Monaco as several high-earning German athletes have done.

Finance officials have denied making a deal with the Grafs. An investigative committee of the state parliament has scheduled more hearings in November.

Agassi, Sampras breeze

ESSEN, Germany -- Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, resuming their battle for the No. 1 ranking, easily advanced to the third round of the $2.1 million Eurocard Open, a tournament featuring the world's tennis elite.

Agassi, the world's No. 1 player, used strong service returns to rout Jacco Eltingh of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-4. Sampras beat Stefan Edberg, once the No. 1 player, 6-3, 6-2.

The tournament features the top 11 ranked players and 18 of the top 20. And No. 5 seed Michael Chang and No. 6 Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia became the first big names to exit, beaten by qualifiers. Also losing was No. 10 Wayne Ferreira of South Africa.

Daniel Vacek of the Czech Republic downed Chang 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), and Germany's Martin Sinner defeated Ivanisevic 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4. France's Arnaud Boetsch upset Ferreira 6-3, 6-2.

No. 3 Thomas Muster of Austria and No. 11 Jim Courier also advanced.

OBITUARY

Bobby Riggs, a Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion whose greatest fame came when Billie Jean King beat him in the "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, died last night. He was 77.

Diagnosed eight years ago with prostate cancer, Riggs died at his home in suburban Leucadia, said Lornie Kuhle, a longtime friend and executive director of the Bobby Riggs Tennis Museum Foundation. Riggs formed the foundation last year to promote awareness and prevention of prostate cancer.

The 1973 match between Riggs, who played his role of tennis hustler to the hilt, and King, who dominated the women's game, was one of the most ballyhooed events in American sports.
 
#5,820 ·
Graf pledges $14M to taxman
UPI NewsTrack
Thursday, October 26, 1995

World women's tennis number one Steffi Graf, mired in tax evasion charges, got backing Thursday from Adidas, one of her main sponsors, after she deposited $14 million (DM 20 million) with tax authorities. Lawyers then promptly demanded the release from custody of her father and manager Peter Graf.

Lawyers for Peter Graf said the deposit of money removes the main reason given for holding him: the likelihood he would flea or cover the tracks of his complex financial operations, allegedly designed to disguise his daughter's true earnings.

The 'Graf affair' has become the subject of political infighting both in Graf's home state of Baden-Wuerrtemberg and in Bonn with the Christian Democrat government in both cases accused of having used its influence to prevent action against the tennis player and her father.

The leader of the CDU group in the Baden Wuerttemberg assembly defended the State tax authorities against charges of having taken it easy on the Grafs. A parliamentary commission which meets Nov. 7 is to examine the charges.

Meanwhile, the federal finance spokesperson for the Green Alliance in Bonn charged the federal finance ministry, which reported suspicions about the Grafs' tax status to the Baden-Wuerttemberg authorities in 1988 of having failed to carry out its supervisory duty over the last seven years.

Unlike carmaker Opel which last week withdrew from multi-million dollar contracts with Graf, sporting goods distributor Adidas' chief executive Robert Louis-Dreyfus said it would continue to work with the tennis player, whom he felt sure was innocent.
 
#5,821 ·
And to top everything off, she's going to go on Letterman. Because if you can't laugh at a dysfunctional family and handing over $14 million, then what can you laugh at?

Cigar 3-5 favorite to win in Classic
USA TODAY
Thursday, October 26, 1995
Rachel Shuster; Greg Boeck; Tom Pedulla; Doug Smith

[...]

GRAF GOES FORWARD: Steffi Graf, besieged by problems that include the jailing of her father in Germany amid charges of tax evasion, nonetheless has agreed to make her second appearance on CBS' Late Night With David Letterman. The world's No. 1-ranked female tennis player is set to do the Nov. 2 show, about two weeks before the WTA TOUR Championships at Madison Square Garden in New York. Her lawyer Wednesday said Graf, after tracking down overseas accounts, has deposited $14.4 million with German authorities to cover taxes which investigators suspect she and her father, Peter, might have evaded.

[...]
 
#5,822 ·
Mind you, he hadn't even been formally charged yet. Even if he did flee, what was he going to do, except further embarrass his own family (which, granted, was well within his capabilities at the time)? There was no money waiting for him anymore on some Caribbean island or in a European micro-country. They probably knew all of his money transfer pathways and endpoints by now, so if he went on the run, all they would have to do is watch to for activity and he would give his location away. I guess the silver lining was that this was a kind of forced drug/alcohol rehab.

Graf payout not enough to free father from jail
The Toronto Star
Friday, October 27, 1995
From Star News Services

German tennis star Steffi Graf could not expect her father to be freed on bail on the basis of $14.4 million she paid to cover taxes investigators suspect they might have evaded, prosecutors said yesterday.

Graf's father, Peter, who has handled the tennis player's financial affairs throughout her career, has been in investigative custody since August on suspicion of tax evasion. Steffi Graf, 26, has faced two lengthy interrogations.

Chief prosecutor Peter Wechsung told Reuters yesterday the payment would have no influence on whether Graf would be freed on bail.

"But the deposit is certainly a factor that could later be taken into consideration in assessing a possible sentence," he added.

A spokesperson for one of Graf's principal sponsors, sportswear maker adidas, said yesterday the company was convinced she was innocent of any wrongdoing.
 
#5,823 ·
A bit of psychobabble, and mistakenly ascribing certain universal traits specifically to the Germans, and failure to recognize natural-born talent or to understand that some "acquired" talents can be even more impressive than anything native, but there are insights to be found here, not least of which is how unsuited Steffi was to being a German popular heroine -- or how unsuited the Germans were to have a popular heroine like Steffi.

Fitness Fanatics - Michael Schumacher
The Times
London, England
Saturday, October 28, 1995
Roger Boyes

QUIET, PLEASE! If you please... Juergen Dilk is very insistent. As president of the First Official Michael Schumacher Fan Club he carries a certain weight. "Over the past three days," he announces over the crackling microphone, "you have guzzled exactly 5,990 litres of beer." A pause. "And I want to say this: I'm proud of you all!" The fans bang their fists and heavy glasses on the trestle tables. A youth in a baseball cap waves a yellow banner embroidered with the German eagle, the German national colours and in a diagonal strip: SCHUMACHER.

It has been a good season for Schumacher fans. Their idol has just picked up the world championship again, and after every race the German driver comes to the fans' tent, eats sausage and yells: "I love you all!" Late at night, after Schumacher has gone to bed, they talk about difficult bends, about the cursed Damon Hill and, at last, they break into song.

Schumacher is the latest in a string of German sports heroes who have made it acceptable to shout in public: "Stuff the English! Crush them!" National sentiments have been buried so deeply for so long that nobody knows how to release them safely. Sports stars help to make German chauvinism respectable - and harmless. Perhaps that is why the tabloid press insists on calling them Schummi (Schumacher), Franzi (van Almsick), Klinsi (Klinsmann) and Steffi (Graf), as if they were favourite teddy bears or a troupe of performing poodles.

They are a strange, brittle bunch, the Schummis and Steffis. Distant yet intimately known, too-good-to-be-true but constantly brushed by scandal, they are Germany's complex new heroes. Indeed, they are the country's only heroes. For five decades Germans have been brought up in a hero-free zone. "This was the direct result of our fractured history," says sociology professor Volker Rittner of the Sports Academy in Cologne. The evil of the Nazi era could, in one way or another, be traced back to a misplaced sense of German heroism: the idea of the master race, the cult of the Fuehrer, the propaganda imagery, the manipulation of Nietzsche's "superman" philosophy and praise of "glorious blond beast thirsting for victory".

Postwar Germany tried to banish heroism; political charisma was suspect. In the words of the critic Ulrich Sonneman, Germans have transformed themselves from beasts of prey "into ants, the very model of industriousness". Plainly, there could be no war heroes in postwar Germany. One searches in vain for a Rommelplatz or Rommelstrasse, and it is difficult even to find traces of Prussian generals such as Gebhard Bluecher, who came to Wellington's rescue at Waterloo. The German army, as it prepares for its first postwar military missions abroad, is trying to dig out acceptable war heroes to inspire the troops, but again and again they stumble into trouble.

There is pressure to rename barracks dedicated to Wehrmacht generals and there is confused controversy on many other fronts. Social Democrats, for example, are insisting that army deserters were the true heroes of the Nazi era. It is impossible, in short, for Germans to mimic the British with their regimental colours, neatly sewn with battle honours, or to put up statues to the German equivalent of Admiral Nelson. Some of Germany's greatest triumphs were over France, but it is politically incorrect to remind young Germans of the fact. Victory on the battlefield has become a source of deep shame; films are made only about great defeats, such as Stalingrad.

"It is a similar story across the board. There is political talent, genius even, but no room for charismatic heroes. Indeed, the most successful German politicians such as Helmut Kohl deliberately emphasise their provincial roots and ordinary lifestyle. Chancellor Kohl certainly eats like a hero, but he rules like an investment fund manager, buying and selling policies. There are no German Richard Bransons, no German Mick Jaggers. Often pop stars, aware of the essential contradiction between Germanness and public charisma, take on English-sounding names: a German singer called Roy Black is mourned as deeply as Elvis in some parts of Germany. "There is this fundamental problem, a trend in many post-industrial societies," says Professor Rittner. "It is becoming more and more difficult to produce heroes, yet the need to identify with exceptional individuals is stronger than ever." The influence of organised religion is receding, but the Germans in particular seem to have a longing to express their feelings en masse, in a semi-religious way. Spontaneous candle-lit processions against racism, or nationwide protests - all this is in the realm of what Rittner calls "irrational identification". But there are no outstanding individuals to give voice to protest, to act as a beacon.

AND SO THESE SPORTS STARS have come to fill the vacuum. Can they really satisfy the many demands and expectations that are being piled on them? Are they destined to buckle and break? In Germany, as in the rest of Europe and the United States, there is a modern cult of physical fitness. "This is connected with the decline of religion and with changing attitudes to work," says Rittner. "To assert yourself in the world you have to have an appropriately fit-looking body, and the body itself becomes a God, a symbol of earthly happiness." In Germany, participating in sports is a way of breaking down the very high social barriers. In a squash game with a virtual stranger, one can address him by the informal "du" - a rather intimate form that is virtually barred at the workplace. "Social distance is closer when you face body stress together," says Rittner, "and mutual admiration of sports heroes brings you even closer together."

The first German sports hero after the war was the soccer player Fritz Walter. A bank clerk who had played for Kaiserslautern before the war, Walter fought in the German army and spent years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp. He resumed his soccer career after the war and in 1954 captained the German team that captured the world championship with a 3-2 win over Hungary. This unleashed a wave of national pride, suppressed for the previous nine years. Some historians believe the German national mood changed as a result of the match (dubbed "the miracle of Berne"). Sports heroes in those days were usually straightforward working-class boys. The virtues of sporting success were also the classic German virtues in the postwar order: work hard, keep personal discipline, live modestly and you can achieve a certain nobility at a time when Germany was still regarded as an occupied and beaten country with moral bills to pay.

Schumacher and Graf are the modern heirs to the Walter tradition. Like Walter, Schumacher comes from a working-class background. His parents run a go-karting centre in Kerpen, not far from Cologne. Like Walter, the racing driver is always clean-shaven, ostentatiously polite (except to Damon Hill) and discreet. In August, after playing cat and mouse with the paparazzi photographers, he married his longstanding girlfriend Corinna, who in a soft light could pass for Claudia Schiffer's sister.

Off the track no whiff of scandal attaches to Schumacher. Perhaps in quiet rivalry with Damon Hill, he has taken on more charity work. Willi Weber, Schumacher's marketing manager, was once reported as saying that his charge was "Goethe, Mozart and Einstein wrapped into one". Asked to confirm this statement, Weber said: "No, I didn't mention Goethe."

Schumacher plainly does possess a kind of genius; when you travel at 200km an hour your brain has to process hundreds of different signals in a thousandth of a second. But it is genius born mainly of discipline. From the age of ten Schumacher was obsessed by go-karting, but he was not allowed to race seriously because he was too young. On wet weekends when his father's track was almost empty, he would plead for a drive. As the water gushed down - the Rhineland is famous for its heavy rains - and the track became more slippery, Schumacher would play with a go-kart, making improvised 360-degree turns. At 15 he was the national junior go-karting champion; at 18 he was European champion. The rain practice served him well when he moved into Formula One racing - his first grand prix title came in Spa in 1992, on a drenched course. Is that genius or singleminded discipline? In Germany the distinction is academic - genius and discipline belong together.

Graf's background is more prosperous, as befits a tennis player who had to be coached from an early age. But her virtues are those of Schumacher, and she has been part of the sporting pantheon for far longer. To Germans, Graf is a model of hard work, combative spirit and niceness. She conforms, in short, to the self-image of most working-class Germans. She may lack humour and off-court grace, but she is an example of how the classic German virtues can bring recognition and financial reward. A Berlin mother trying to rouse her teenage daughter in the morning will say: "If you get up early and organise your time properly, you can be just like Steffi."

That formula may be working rather less successfully nowadays. Graf's father, Peter, has been in remand prison since August, her tax accountant has been arrested and her bank documents searched by detectives. She has come under almost unbearable pressure that may mark the beginning of the end of her career. Prosecutors believe that sponsorship money has been diverted to Dutch accounts to dodge the German taxman. Graf has been interrogated, Opel has ended its sponsorship contract and the tax affair has even become the subject of a parliamentary investigation commission. The latest opinion poll shows that 48 per cent of Germans believe Steffi's image to have been severely damaged. "I don't believe the survey," says Rittner. "The need for a popular heroine is simply too big to be shattered by a case of tax evasion."

Nonetheless, the Graf case does show how burdened Germany's sports stars have become. Since they are no longer merely successful athletes but rather national icons, they are expected to have views on everything, yet be uncontroversial and supra-political. They lead, follow and prod the public consciousness.

Long before the tax affair blew up, Graf was in trouble of a different kind. More than any other player on the international circuit, she is the object of fascination for the psychologically unhinged. Her postbag is bursting with strange attestations of love. "It is something to do with her Germanness, her apparent innocence and evident worldliness," says psychoanalyst Bernd Schubert. The knife attack on Monica Seles was prompted by a mad love for the German player. Graf, the perfect German girl, had to be number one.

The latest to crumple under the pressure of Germany's high expectations is the 17-year-old swimmer Franziska van Almsick, who confessed recently to reading Mein Kampf (a banned book in Germany) and who concluded that Hitler was "quite clever". She later claimed to have been misinterpreted: "I am simply interested in German history, and the Second World War belongs to Adolf Hitler. It's not forbidden to be interested in such things."

This was a reasonable enough defence, but it was made in the context of a tearful week in which her political views somehow tangled with her mixed success in the swimming pool. Unlike Graf, Franzi's main sponsors did not withdraw at the first flicker of crisis. She can still be seen advertising milk chocolates and German cars. But Franzi and Steffi nowadays seem to be teetering on the brink of nervous breakdowns. They are happy to be loved, are mature enough to accept occasional sporting setbacks, but the expectations of the nation, expressed at their crudest in newspaper headlines, are proving too much. "Why can't they find somebody else to hound and let me get on with my tennis?" Graf told a friend recently. But she was missing the point: there is nobody else.

German demands on their heroes and heroines are shifting, however. "There is a notable trend towards the rebel, the bad boy who can subsequently be forgiven," says Rittner. These are the heroes with edge and attitude who tell referees to shut up or who break their rackets. In the United States, bad boys have long ago been accepted as entertainers: John McEnroe was the pioneer. They are on the same spectrum as rock stars, who are expected, as a matter of form, to destroy hotel suites since this act establishes their unruly genius. Slowly Germans have come to acknowledge Boris Becker as a bad-boy hero. The mass circulation Bild newspaper has been battering him for years, complaining about his form, his politics and his haircut. Now even the tabloid press is beginning to admit that Becker is not part of the clean-cut picture gallery that stretches from Walter to Schumacher. Becker publicly sympathises with long-haired squatters in Hamburg, speaks out against German racism - and has a black wife - and tells interviewers that his secret dream is to be a taxi driver in Brooklyn. Becker as a star divides Germans into those who love him and those who hate him; in that sense, he is a modern hero. The Germans are starting to differentiate. Not everybody has to conform to the pattern of Siegfried the dragon slayer.

It is a realisation that comes from outside. Hollywood showed Germans that they could lay claim to a war hero: Oskar Schindler, a gambler and cheat, who gambled and cheated to save Jewish lives. Bad men, it seemed, can do good things; good men can do bad. Schindler is still an uneasy presence. Many Germans have still not made up their minds about the man. But the nature of heroism is certainly changing in Germany. It is certainly inconceivable, of course, that Graf could suddenly become a female version of Becker. Whatever her problems, she will remain in the world of robotic, or at least docile, heroines.

Schumacher, however, is busily transforming himself into the Becker of the racetrack. True, he is still Mr Nice Guy posing with his West Highland terrier (blond) and the wife (blonde), adjusting the set of his chin for the cameras and stressing to interviewers that he bears no one in the world any ill will. But the long duel this season with Damon Hill has made people think twice about Schumacher. There is the nagging question of all competing athletes: can you be nice and be a winner?

Schumacher certainly discarded some of the cosy trappings on the track this season. There was the riddle of how Schumacher swiftly lost a stone in weight at a critical point in the championship. And the on-track tactics have begun to look very dubious: overtaking Hill on a warm-up lap, ignoring a black flag, the pushing and the shoving, much of it directed at his English rival.

Schumacher explains this all away as a clutch of misunderstandings, but that is not the whole story. First, he has learnt a trick or two from Ayrton Senna, a particularly tough driver who often used bullying tactics on the racetrack (indeed, Senna died while attempting to stay ahead of Schumacher). Second, there is something in Schumacher, behind the courteous off-track manner, that irritates many of his fellow drivers. A German sports reporter told me, with the air of a dissident passing on samizdat: "Germans will understand next season that this has not been purely a Hill versus Schumacher thing. It is a Schumacher problem - there is something about him that makes people want to jump at his throat."

A rare insight. But where does it leave the ace driver? Schumacher is in transit. Perhaps one day soon we will hear his views on European monetary union or Bosnia; perhaps he will start to smash up restaurants and swear at judges. When he changes teams, from Benetton to Ferrari, perhaps he will change colour, tone and mood and join the bad guy brigade. For the time being, though, he remains his mother's pride: a true German hero. One of the few.
 
#5,846 ·
Fitness Fanatics - Michael Schumacher
The Times
London, England
Saturday, October 28, 1995
Roger Boyes

QUIET, PLEASE! If you please... Juergen Dilk is very insistent. As president of the First Official Michael Schumacher Fan Club he carries a certain weight. "Over the past three days," he announces over the crackling microphone, "you have guzzled exactly 5,990 litres of beer." A pause. "And I want to say this: I'm proud of you all!" The fans bang their fists and heavy glasses on the trestle tables. A youth in a baseball cap waves a yellow banner embroidered with the German eagle, the German national colours and in a diagonal strip: SCHUMACHER.

It has been a good season for Schumacher fans. Their idol has just picked up the world championship again, and after every race the German driver comes to the fans' tent, eats sausage and yells: "I love you all!" Late at night, after Schumacher has gone to bed, they talk about difficult bends, about the cursed Damon Hill and, at last, they break into song.

Schumacher is the latest in a string of German sports heroes who have made it acceptable to shout in public: "Stuff the English! Crush them!" National sentiments have been buried so deeply for so long that nobody knows how to release them safely. Sports stars help to make German chauvinism respectable - and harmless. Perhaps that is why the tabloid press insists on calling them Schummi (Schumacher), Franzi (van Almsick), Klinsi (Klinsmann) and Steffi (Graf), as if they were favourite teddy bears or a troupe of performing poodles.

They are a strange, brittle bunch, the Schummis and Steffis. Distant yet intimately known, too-good-to-be-true but constantly brushed by scandal, they are Germany's complex new heroes. Indeed, they are the country's only heroes. For five decades Germans have been brought up in a hero-free zone. "This was the direct result of our fractured history," says sociology professor Volker Rittner of the Sports Academy in Cologne. The evil of the Nazi era could, in one way or another, be traced back to a misplaced sense of German heroism: the idea of the master race, the cult of the Fuehrer, the propaganda imagery, the manipulation of Nietzsche's "superman" philosophy and praise of "glorious blond beast thirsting for victory".

[...]
VERY interesting article :worship: and lol at the red part, still true today.

Thank YOU Mrs Anthropic again and again for all the articles:hearts:
 
#5,824 ·
The "ironies of German law" would become a common theme, especially among 'Murican tennis writers, who apparently never read anything in their own papers about our jurisprudence.

Also of interest is Monica being sighted "in better shape."

GRAF'S IMAGE BADLY TARNISHED
The Star-Ledger
Newark, NJ
Sunday, October 29, 1995
Al Picker

Some people in the tennis world are shaking their heads about the ironies of German law.

Monica Seles was stabbed in the back in 1993 during a match in Germany. The attacker went free with a two-year suspended sentence since it was determined that he was harmless, and would probably not attack again. And because Seles refused to take the stand, something that the judge deemed necessary for a possible conviction on attempted manslaughter.

Gunter Parche's motive was to dislodge Seles from the No. 1 ranking so that his personal favorite, Steffi Graf, could return to the top position.

Fast forward to 1995. Now, who is in hot water with the law? Graf.

She hasn't been formally charged with anything yet, but her father, Peter Graf, has been jailed for the past three months for apparently hiding some $35-40 million of income earned by his daughter to avoid Germany's high income tax rate.

Germany obviously takes a sterner view of white collar crime as compared to a violent physical attack. Peter Graf has been held incommunicado while authorities attempt to unravel the monetary mystery.

Graf's image as the "queen" of Germany's sports elite has been badly tarnished even if she is never implicated in the nefarious doings of her father, her business agent. She gave him full rein, allowing him to ask for and receive huge sums of money, apparently most of it unreported income that left the country for secret investments and bank deposits.

What a twist for German sports fans enamored wih Graf for her loyalty in retaining her German residence while compatriot Boris Becker opted for a home in Monte Carlo, Monaco, specifically to avoid soaring income taxes.

Two weeks ago was one lingering nightmare period for Graf. First, she went through some severe grilling from government officials to see what, if any, involvement she had in this tangled financial mess. Then, she lost a lucrative, long-term contract with Opel, a $1.2 million pact allegedly going by the boards because the company is obviously concerned about sponsoring a player whose image might be smirched by a growing financial scandal.

And then came a loss on the court, an astonishing first-round setback in Brighton, England, to 54th-ranked Mariaan de Swardt, the overweight player who played doubles for the New Jersey Stars.

Graf has lost only twice this year, both times to South Africans, Amanda Coetzer and de Swardt.

It will be interesting to see if Graf can put aside her personal problems when she tries to put a wrap on a brilliant season at the WTA TOUR Championships in Madison Square Garden Nov. 13-19. She has won the three Grand Slams in which she competed this year, the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open. But she readily admits that tennis is not the only thing on her mind these days. That could spell trouble when you are supposed to be fully concentrating on getting one's game together.

WAITING IN THE WINGS at MSG will be Seles, in better shape and better prepared to do battle. She barely lost in that thrilling U.S. Open three-set finale to Graf back in September.

Seles was in New York City recently for the Women's Sports Foundation dinner and looked stunning in her evening gown, besides being upbeat about her tennis prospects.

"I'm looking forward to my return to New York, I love the city and the (WTA TOUR) Championships," said Seles. "I took off some time after the Open to rest my knees.

"The Open was such a high for me. Afterwards, I was emotionally and physically drained. I didn't realize how much people missed me. There was such a tremendous outpouring."

Seles and Gabriela Sabatini will give Garden fans two defending champions. Last year, Sabatini knocked off Lindsay Davenport. Seles had won it three straight times before the stabbing episode, beating Sabatini in 1990 and Martina Navratilova in 1991 and '92.

Bringing the WTA TOUR field to 10 is the addition of Magdalena Maleeva, Iva Majoli and Jana Novotna. The others who had qualified are Graf, Conchita Martinez, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Mary Pierce, Sabatini and Kimiko Date with Seles getting a wild-card entry if she does not qualify on her own.

On the doubles side, the first three qualifiers are the teams of Gigi Fernandez-Natasha Zvereva, Novotna-Sanchez Vicario and Meredith McGrath-Larisa Neiland.

Nicole Arendt of Princeton could make it into the season finale for the first time. Arendt and Manan Bollegraf are currently in sixth place in the point standings, with eight doubles teams qualifying for the event.

NOTHING CAN BE TAKEN for granted in men's tennis. No. 2-ranked Pete Sampras had won in Lyon, France, for the past three years and arrived in the final with Wayne Ferreira. The reigning Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion lost.

Austrian Thomas Muster played before "hometown" fans in Vienna. He was seeking his 12th title of the year against final-round opponent Filip Dewulf of Belgium, a qualifier ranked No. 119. Third-ranked Muster lost.

Also in Vienna, the No. 1-ranked doubles team of Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde gained the final. They had won seven previous finals in 1995. Of course, they lost, falling to Ellis Ferreira and Jan Siemerink.

Something can be taken for granted. Michael Chang is doing well in Asia. He won his 10th title on that continent and third in a row in Beijing, China, by beating Renzo Furlan.

Chang found time to do a Reebok commercial, hitting against the Great Wall of China. The premise of the ad was that Reebok and Chang are impenetrable. Chang has made Chinese fans believers.
 
#5,825 ·
It should not be surprising that the Wall Street Journal is rooting for the Grafs -- indeed all German tax dodgers. "Starve the beast!"

Steffi's not the only German with tax woes
Bruce Bartlett
Wall Street Journal
October 31, 1995

Steffi Graf's lawyer said on Wednesday that the tennis star has deposited 20 million marks ($14.4 million) with authorities to cover the taxes they claim she owes. Apparently Ms. Graf had paid only about 10 million marks in German taxes since 1983, on an estimated income of more than 177 million marks. Her father, Peter Graf, to whom she entrusted all her financial affairs, is in jail, along with Joachim Eckardt, her tax adviser. Ms. Graf has not yet been charged with any wrongdoing. But after two interrogations by the authorities, neither has she been cleared.

The details of the alleged tax-avoidance scheme are still sketchy, but it appears that Ms. Graf's father set up a complex system of shell corporations outside Germany in which to hide the money from her considerable tennis winnings, equipment contracts, sponsorship fees and other income. It has also been suggested that the finance authorities in her home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg may have given her special treatment. A state parliament committee is investigating the matter.

However the Graf case ends, it may ultimately do more than the well-publicized flight of German industry to call world-wide attention to the country's high taxes.

The heavy tax burden has led many Germans far below Ms. Graf's income level to hide their capital in Luxembourg and Switzerland, and to engage in increasingly bizarre tax avoidance schemes. For example, it was recently reported that the 50 citizens of Norderfriedrichskoog in Schleswig-Holstein have discovered a 300-year-old tax loophole freeing them from capital-related taxes. As a result, the area has suddenly become the preferred location for various corporate headquarters -- on paper, if not in physical presence.

Tax evasion has been a growing problem in Germany for years, especially since 1993 when authorities imposed a 30% withholding tax on interest income. Since then, thousands of ordinary Germans have been reported carrying suitcases full of cash across the Luxembourg border. It is estimated that more than $150 billion of German capital has been diverted to banks in the grand duchy, costing Germany some $15 billion in tax revenues. Authorities have attempted to crack down on organized tax evasion -- even raiding the offices of Merrill Lynch, searching for evidence. But as long as German taxes remain high, there is little likelihood of stemming the tide.

Even a country as well-off as Germany cannot afford the loss of such a large amount of capital from domestic employment. And it may help explain the growing shortfall in tax revenues. According to a recent government report, 1996 revenues are now expected to be 11.4 billion marks lower than expected.

How high are German taxes? According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, total taxes as a share of gross domestic product reached 39.2% in 1994 -- not especially high by European standards. Eleven other countries have higher tax ratios. But for average production workers, Germany has the fifth heaviest tax burden among all OECD countries. In 1993, they paid 36.6% of their income in taxes. Only workers in Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden paid more.

Among major countries, however, German workers are by far the worst off. Italian workers paid the next heaviest burden at 22.9% -- 40% less than their German counterparts. Tax rates on workers in the U.K., France, Canada and Japan were lower still.

At 53%, the top German income tax rate is not especially high by European standards. But while the top German tax rate came down just three percentage points since 1986, almost every other OECD country has cut its top rate far more. For example, the top rate in France came down to 57% from 65%. In the U.K. it fell to 40% from 60%. Japan's top rate has fallen to 50% from 70%. And at 39.6%, the U.S. top rate is still well below the German level, even after two significant tax increases since 1986. Thus Germany has, in effect, stood still in terms of tax cutting, while almost everyone else moved forward.

The top individual rate in Germany may not stand out, but its corporate tax rate is by far the highest of any OECD country. According to the accounting firm of KPMG, the top corporate tax rate on undistributed profits in Germany is 58.95%. The next highest rate among all OECD countries is 52.2% in Italy. However, the typical rate, even in high-tax countries, tends to be in the range of 30% to 40%.

While it is difficult to draw a direct connection between the tax burden and economic performance, it is clear that the German economy is not doing very well. Growth forecasts are being revised downward and unemployment remains stubbornly high. And even Germans no longer find investing in Germany to be attractive. According to a government report, in the first six months of this year German investment abroad doubled (to about 28.2 billion marks) when compared with the same period last year.

In a recent speech, Chancellor Helmut Kohl lamented the loss of spirit in Germany that lifted the country out of the ashes of World War II. Yet the German economic recovery never would have happened without tax cuts.

During the war, the top tax rate in Germany reached only 67% -- far lower than comparable levels in the U.S. or U.K. This is because the war was financed largely with deficit spending. Between 1939 and 1945, taxes covered just 26% of government spending, falling to just 16% in 1945.

However, rather than improve the collection of existing taxes, the Allied occupation sharply increased tax rates to make up the shortfall in revenue. Tax rates on wages increased 25% and those on other income rose 35%. Corporate taxes went up 20% and property taxes were increased by as much as 400%. Alcohol taxes were lifted by an amazing 2,314%. It is estimated that overall tax revenues increased by 146%.

At the same time, price controls and the extensive system of government regulation of the economy remained intact. The economy collapsed. By 1947, food production was down to 58% of prewar levels, while industrial production was down to one-third.

By 1948, the situation was so desperate that the Allied occupation acquiesced to Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard's bold plan to stabilize the currency and lift all economic controls. The plan worked brilliantly, with goods returning to empty shops virtually overnight.

Although Mr. Erhard wanted to cut tax rates as well, the Allies resisted that part of his plan. However, he was allowed to institute significant tax incentives for saving and investment. Later, when the occupation ended, tax rates were reduced, with the top rate falling to 53% from 95% by 1958. By contrast, the top U.S. rate was still at its World War II level of 91% in 1958. It did not fall to 70% until 1965.

What Germany desperately needs today is another Erhard -- a leader who recognizes that low taxes and free markets are the best way to stimulate growth. Unless action is taken soon, Germany may find its best and brightest people leaving for greener pastures, just as German capital is already taking flight. As Adam Smith warned, someone with capital -- either human or financial -- is ultimately a citizen of the world, "apt to abandon the country in which it was exposed to a vexatious inquisition." If burdened by an excessive tax, he "would remove his stock to some other country where he could either carry on his business, or enjoy his fortune more at his ease."

German tennis great Boris Becker took that route long ago, moving to Monaco. Steffi Graf might be wise to join him there.

---

Mr. Bartlett is a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis.
 
#5,826 ·
A great example of how the facts of the case were either completely misunderstood or completely disregarded.

TAXING ISSUE BURDENS STEFFI, OTHER ATHLETES
Daily Press
Newport News, VA
Tuesday, October 31, 1995
ED MOORE, Daily Press

Professional athletes have big houses and big cars and big lifestyles and big gates to guard all their loot. The German tennis star Steffi Graf has all that, too, but she apparently forgot to buy the big mattress to stuff all her money in.

Now the tax man is on her trail and he's in no mood to hear of extension plans. Athletes hiding income - whether of their own volition or their agents' deceit - has become a big worry of most governments of late, even, we read, in China.

Our own American IRS nailed Pete Rose, Darryl Strawberry, Willie McCovey and Duke Snider, and have investigated countless others, for hiding income from baseball card shows.

That's peanuts to the Graf family.

The German tax police claim Steffi willfully hid and hasn't paid taxes on $35.2 million in the last two to three years alone.

So they invaded her house to look for all that cash. They say they caught the father, Peter - Steffi's Svengali - red-handed and put him in jail, where he still sits. They also essentially fingerprinted and took mugs of Steffi during extensive questioning, but for now aren't arresting her, despite reports they are about to.

Steffi says Dad controls her money and she doesn't know what the tax police are talking about. She says there must be some confusion, that the Grafs always pay their taxes.

Steffi apparently loses $35.2 million as easily as the rest of us lose the remote control in the couch cushions.

The paper trail to prove guilt or innocence is daunting to both sides, and everyone admits there are computers involved in insidious ways.

Figures. These things never happened before computers. If you were a tax cheat, you knew you were a tax cheat, just like those baseball players who took cash under the table to sign autographs. They were eventually done in by statements to the IRS from the people who paid them. No honor among thieves, you know.

Most American athletes pay taxes at about the same rate as ordinary folk. But in Europe, the tax police see athletes as prey. Stars escape Europe, not to ditch their wife for a college coed like Nick Faldo did, but because the tax police over there make the IRS over here look like just so many little kids begging for candy once a year.

''People should remember what Steffi and my father did for Germany,'' Steffi's brother said. Well, the German government is not historically known for its mercy, unless of course, you were to actually stab a tennis star in the back.

All that money lost in a computer somewhere is a colossal waste. Imagine what you could you accomplish in sports with $35.2 million.

You could buy Albert Belle a heart.

You could buy Ted Turner a vocabulary.

You could buy Eddie Murray a personality.

You could buy a neuron transplant for Dennis Rodman.

You could buy Terry Bradshaw a brain.

You could neuter the Fox Network.

You could pay George Steinbrenner's $600,000 worth of career fines and still pay the San Francisco 49ers' fine for a $60,000 illegal contribution to the mayoral campaign.

You could buy a fake birth certificate for Ryne Sandberg, now unretiring at - holy cow - an ancient 36. Michael, then Ryno, who's unretiring in Chicago next, Tom Boerwinkle?

Poor Steffi. She's accused of being Germany's Leona Helmsley and she didn't even get to slap around any little people, unless, of course, you count hundreds of kids playing the WTA tour and a pudgy Monica Seles.
 
#5,827 ·
Things like this really do not support the contention that Monica would have won everything from May 1993 until the early Noughties if she hadn't been stabbed. Some body part IS going to hurt. Good thing Corel had already signed the sponsorship contract.

Meanwhile, Steffi and Liza Minnelli checked out Donna Karan's DKNY fashion show. "I love New York!"

SELES OPTS TO REST KNEE RATHER THAN ENDURE PAIN
Doug Smith
USA Today
November 1, 1995

Monica Seles, who swung her first racket at 7, says her father's main advice was "never go on the court while hurt."

Though she abandoned dad's advice several times in the last few months, Seles, slowed with tendinitis (left knee), now seems adamant about not playing again until she feels no pain. She withdrew Tuesday from the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland and doubts if she'll play the WTA Championships Nov. 13-19 in New York.

Seles took three weeks off after losing to Steffi Graf in the U.S. Open final and practiced only on clay, preparing for the Oakland event. But one day on the tournament's hard courts convinced her that the knee needed more rest.

"They told me tendinitis takes eight weeks sometimes," Seles said before her pullout.

"This has been bugging me since two weeks before Atlantic City. I've been taking pain relievers, but those don't make it permanent. Somebody told me, 'Well, you just have to get used to it, Monica.' But I don't want to play with pain at 21."

Seles first strayed from her father Karolj's don't-play-hurt rule last July when she met Martina Navratilova in her-return-to-tennis exhibition in Atlantic City, televised by CBS.

The exhibition, her first public match since being stabbed in the back in April 1993, was a prelude to her return to the WTA TOUR, made two weeks later in Toronto.

"I broke my father's philosophy because there was so much riding on that match," Seles said. "After winning Toronto (Aug. 14-20), I took off again for the U.S. Open. All this time the pain didn't go away.

"I don't want to keep taking painkillers; your body gets used to them and it's not going to help. What are you going to do then? Injections, I don't believe in and I never will. Maybe in my last year of tennis, but not right now. So we'll see."

CUPS OF CLAY: The USA vs. Russia Davis Cup final will be played Dec. 1-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow on red clay. Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi are expected to lead the U.S. team. The USA vs. Spain Fed Cup final Nov. 25-26 also will be on red clay in Valencia, Spain. Seles hopes to play on the less stressful surface.
 
#5,828 ·
Possibly the first time that Steffi was not the first person to finish eating.

For Graf, a Bitter Year and an Uncertain Future
ROBIN FINN
The New York Times
November 3, 1995

She doesn't want to be a witness for the prosecution and she doesn't like these feelings of persecution.

The world's No. 1 tennis player should be busy celebrating the end to a banner year that brought her three Grand Slam titles. Instead, she is hiring tax-law strategists and criminal-defense lawyers and cringing each time she gets too close to a radio or TV or newspaper in Europe. Her life has become an open ledger book there and hers is the debacle inquiring minds can't seem to get enough of.

"It's disgusting," said Steffi Graf of the involuntary notoriety that began when Government officials from her native Germany ransacked her home for evidence and then jailed her father in a tax-evasion case this summer. Ever since then, Graf, who has been allowed just one brief meeting with her father, Peter, has absorbed increasing doses of a life lesson she never wanted to learn.

Should she have taken a greater interest in the management -- and whereabouts -- of her financial portfolio? Should she have followed the example of so many other tennis stars -- like Bjorn Borg and her countryman Boris Becker -- and sidestepped a harsh hometown tax structure by taking up residence in Monaco? Should she have given her father full responsibility in matters of money management?

"It doesn't help to look back and say where or if you went wrong," she said yesterday.

Too, Graf said she could hardly be expected to learn how to be her own best accountant at the same time she was traveling the globe in pursuit of tennis titles. "To be realistic, I couldn't have handled investing the money, and figured out all the taxes from every country where I made that money, even if I'd wanted to," she said.

Last month, the frustration and depression about the tax case so overwhelmed her, said Graf -- a coper who managed to win this year's United States Open on sheer willpower despite a bad back and aching foot -- that she couldn't even find solace on the tennis court. For Graf, that was an unthinkable development.

Now, after a pair of seven-hour interrogation sessions with the same Mannheim prosecutors who arrested her father and are seeking upwards of $70 million in reparations, Graf is getting back to the heady business of earning her fame and fortune on the court.

It's all been a learning process she wouldn't wish on anyone, she said yesterday in Manhattan in the course of a whirlwind media day where she attempted a graceful grin-and-bear-it attitude for "Good Morning America," David Letterman and a dozen American journalists who shared lunch with her in a private room at Madison Square Garden.

Graf came out of her shell not because misery loves company, but because she felt obligated to show her allegiance to Corel, the new title sponsor of the women's tour, by promoting the WTA Championships at the Garden, the year-ending event she has won three times.

She worried that her stint in the Letterman hot seat might seem frivolous, given the ongoing trauma in her personal life, which to her is far from a joking matter. She worried that all three public appearances would expose cracks in her legendary composure. Graf was trained from an early age to betray no emotions, the better to arouse trepidation in her rivals.

But with two key weeks of tennis ahead of her, a tuneup tournament next week in Philadelphia and the Championships in New York Nov. 13-19, Graf realized that her place was here, not Germany. So she duly munched her Madison Square Garden chicken drumsticks yesterday -- she even gently remonstrated a waiter for whisking away her plate before she'd finished -- and talked about getting on with her life.

As for being away from Germany now, she said that "it's helped me a lot to get a certain distance." Graf has spent the past two weeks in New York, where she has even interjected some levity -- she attended two musicals along with a Donna Karan fashion show -- into her never-ending regime of practice and physical therapy.

"I've got it under control," she said of her nagging backache, which is currently entrusted to a Long Island chiropractor.

This year marks Graf's 11th appearance at the Championships, open to the world's top 16 players, and while it presumably won't be her last appearance, she has indicated no interest in setting a record for professional longevity.

"I'm playing since I could stand up and hold a racquet, sort of, so it's a pretty long time," said the 26-year-old Graf. "I've already won everything I could."

This year Graf, who has played just one match since the Open, has played nine tournaments and won seven, three of them Grand Slam events. But it was no coincidence that her two losses, both of them in opening rounds, came on the heels of publicity surrounding the case against her father.

Her legal difficulties have left her frazzled, out-of-sorts, and have wreaked havoc on her customary attention to detail. Perfectionists like Graf don't often forget to include their sneakers when packing up gear for a practice session at the U.N. Plaza hotel's high-rise court, but that's exactly what happened yesterday.

"She's been a little absent-minded," said Graf's coach, Heinz Gunthardt, who dutifully offered her his own footwear.

Instead, a very penitent Graf opted to call her mother, Heidi, at their SoHo apartment, and had her send the shoes uptown in a taxi.

"I can't believe I forgot them," said Graf, who likes things mistake-free but is lately learning, in more ways than one, that life can't always be that way.
 
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