54-YO WTA Pro Confesses to Still Bearing Scars of Steffi Graf’s Dominance in a Brutally Honest Admission

The women’s tennis of the late eighties and the early nineties was a lot about the intense rivalry between Gabriela Sabatini and Steffi Graf. The stats will tell you that Steffi Graf won 22 Grand Slam titles compared to Sabatini’s solitary Slam, but this rivalry was much more than the wins or losses. When the two of them played, it never seemed as if one player had a clear edge over the other on the court, even though the eventual results went in Graf’s favor most of the time.

Despite all odds, Gabriela Sabatini was widely tipped as the player who could stop the Graf juggernaut in 1988. That year, the duo played two high-profile finals – one was the US Open final and the other one later in the year was the Olympic gold medal match. Graf had already won three Slam titles coming into the US Open and was looking to complete the Golden Slam by winning the US Open and the Olympics. And her famed rival seemed no match for her.

Gabriela Sabatini’s best was not good enough for Steffi Graf

Sabatini recently sat with Chris Bowers on the “Tennis Worthy” podcast and candidly talked about her career and life. It wasn’t a surprise that Graf found a mention in the podcast. The host Chris Bowers asked Sabatini specifically about her rivalry with Graf in the summer of 1988. Sabatini lost both finals to Graf and Chris Bowers wanted to know if the pressure of playing Graf got the better of Sabatini.

“I felt pressure but I knew Steffi had this opportunity and she was gonna go for it. But I tried to take it away from her and play, you know, my best tennis but you know, on the other side was Steffi. And she was always tough. So yeah, it was it was a three-set match. I remember the US Open. And then I remember after that we play the Olympics in Seoul, which again, we play another final, which she won again,” Sabatini told Bowers.