Graf–Seles rivalry Graf–Seles rivalry Steffi Graf and Monica Seles are retired professional tennis players who between 1989 and 1999 engaged in a rivalry for the best female tennis player. They competed in 15 matches. Seles, a left-handed player, demonstrated powerful and precise hitting from the baseline on both wings. Graf, in contrast, had a formidable forehand, in addition to her penetrating serve, but mostly sliced her backhand. Their head to head rivalry was especially notable for Graf being dominant on tour in Seles' first years and then Seles being dominant at the grand slams winning three of the four matches they played
Steffi Graf Jaz Elle. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013), a car and insurance salesman. When she was nine years old her family moved to the neighbouring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother Michael. Graf was introduced to tennis by her father, an aspiring tennis coach, who taught his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practicing on a court at