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:
Agassi has said the universe screamed that Graf was the one
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He claimed that when he was in the process of divorcing Shields, the Pretty Baby actress put a picture of Graf’s legs in a heart-shaped magnet on the fridge because those were the legs she was striving for. Agassi noted, “That’s the universe screaming,” adding, “It’s a bullhorn.”
