El Enlace de Ensueño - La Boda de Andre Agassi y Steffi Graf

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Stefanie Maria Graf was born on June 14, 1969 in Mannheim, West Germany, the daughter of Heidi Schalk and Peter Graf. Her father was an aspiring tennis coach, introducing Graf to the game by teaching her how to wield a wooden racket at the age of three. At the age of four, she began practicing on court, and entered her first tournament when she was five. Soon enough, she was winning the top prize at numerous junior tournaments.

(Photo by Bob Martin/Getty Images)

Graf began 1988 by defeating Chris Evert and winning the Australian Open, not losing a single set during the tournament. She then won the tournament in Berlin, defended her title at the French Open, and conquered Wimbledon by coming from behind to defeat Navratilova. Finally, upon winning the US Open, Graf took the Grand Slam title, the only such title in history completed across three surfaces: clay, hard court, and grass. The cherry on top of this honor came during the summer Olympic Games in Seoul, where Graf beat Gabriela Sabatini in the gold medal match, and became the first and only Golden Slam winner in history.

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Career Earnings

During her career Steffi earned $21 million in tournament prizes. That's the same as around $40 million in today's dollars. She earned tens of millions more from endorsements.

In 1995 Steffi was accused of tax evasion by German tax authorities. Authorities actually went so far as to arrest Steffi's father, a former used car salesman who managed her finances, for failing to pay income on $25-35 million of her earnings. That constituted roughly every penny she had earned up to that point playing tennis professionally. The Grafs were also accused of writing off $700,000 worth of legal and other expenses that were allegedly used to cover up an extramarital affair conducted by Peter.

Steffi was questioned but placed the blame entirely on her father, who was eventually convicted and sentenced to 45 months in prison. He served 25 months. Steffi had to pay 1.3 million Deutsche Marks in penalties and fines.

At a particularly low point during the saga, July 1996, Steffi was playing in a Wimbledon match when a fan yelled out "Steffi, will you marry me?!" After attempting to gather herself and holding back a laugh for a bit, Steffi finally replied "how much money do you have?!" much to the audience's delight:

They were formally introduced after winning Wimbledon the same year

Agassi had the chance to meet Graf after winning his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 1992. She won the ladies' singles tennis title at the tournament the same year. Agassi was “dying to go” to the Wimbledon Ball that he’d heard about for years because the men’s winner got to dance with the women’s winner. He even purchased a tuxedo from Harrods for the event, but was informed that the dance had been canceled.