Steffi Graf & Andre Agassi during the Longines Los Angeles Masters Charity Pro-Am held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

More than twenty years ago, when the tennis icon resigned from competition, it was presumed that she would maintain a low profile after her career and retire from the sport. Even yet, it is possible that this is an understatement of her activity in the 21st century.At that moment, Tracy Austin executed a U-turn. It was the spring of 2019, those glorious days before COVID-19, and Austin, who had once been the No. 1 ranked player on the WTA Tour, was sitting in the stands at the USC tennis facility. She was there to watch her son Brandon, who was a junior at the time, play a match. As she looked over, she noticed a familiar face: a friendly, clean-shaven middle-aged man who was wearing a shirt that was emblazoned with the USC Trojans logo. He was followed by his blonde wife, who was dressed in more appropriate apparel and had a tight smile on her face. In addition, she was a well-known figure. According to Austin, “It was out of context, so it took a second after that.” However, I am thinking to myself, “Wait, are those Andre and Steffi?”

So it was. On that particular day, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, who are widely considered to be the most successful sports pair in the history of the world, had a compelling reason to be present on campus. Recently, their son Jaden, a right-handed pitcher with Major League potential, had made a commitment to attend the University of Southern California. A game was being played in the afternoon, and his family had come to watch his future teammates compete.

However, Jaden’s parents, who had once dominated the sport of tennis and won a combined total of thirty major singles titles (with Mom winning 22 of them), found it impossible to resist the allure of the tennis facility that was located close to their home. Agassi made himself comfortable and gazed. In response, Austin explains, “You are aware of how Andre is and how his tennis brain functions.” Almost immediately, he began to dismantle Brandon’s skills and abilities.Who is his spouse? According to Austin, whose career briefly overlapped with Graf’s, “Well, she couldn’t have been nicer,” according to Austin’s recollection. But you are aware of how Steffi behaves. I have a feeling that she went out to the burger truck in a manner that was somewhat stealthy and picked up lunch for everyone.

During the subsequent few years, Graf and Agassi would travel to Troy on a number of other occasions. Despite the fact that Jaden has chosen to compete in a hand-eye sport that is not the same as his parents’, he is also a highly skilled athlete. His victory over UCLA, a rival school, came in the spring of this year, when he was a sophomore. In spite of the fact that he has recently entered the transfer portal following the loss of his head coach, it is highly possible that he will be selected in the Major League draft.

In the afternoon, after Graf had left the tennis facility at the University of Southern California, a woman who had been seated close turned to another woman.

One of the women spoke up and asked, “Do you know who it was that you were talking to?”

According to the second person, “She stated that her son was participating in baseball at USC, and she had a daughter who was in high school.” She was also present with her husband at the time. They make their home in Las Vegas.

Almost with a hissing sound, the companion exclaimed, “That was Steffi Graf!”

“There is no way! How was I expected to be aware of that?

David Epstein, who was a journalist at Sports Illustrated in the past, has written an outstanding book titled “The Sports Gene,” in which he recounts the story of Steffi Graf, who, when she was a small child, attended a sports academy in Germany. She was put through a battery of tests, and her performance was evaluated on a variety of factors, including her ability to maintain concentration, her running speed, and her motivation to compete. Overall, she came out on top in the competition. Epstein was informed by Wolfgang Schneider, a sport psychologist from Germany, that “We predicted from her lung capacity that she could have ended up being the European champion in the 1,500 meters.”

Graf committed her huge talents, as well as her lung capacity and her competitive drive, to the sport of tennis, regardless of whether she participated in the sport voluntarily or was forced to participate in it. Peter, her father, was a former soccer player and insurance salesman. He started playing tennis when he was 27 years old, which is considered to be a somewhat late age for getting into a new sport. In spite of this, he was quickly enticed to leave his work and become a tennis instructor. He also became the proprietor of the local tennis club in the Rhineland town of Bruhl. Almost immediately after the birth of his daughter in 1969, Peter declared that she will go on to become a champion in the future.