Wimbledon '95: The German who rules the world...

A year ago when Steffi Graf crashed out of Wimbledon, there was a growing feeling that her reign was over. But, despite persistent back problems, she has returned this spring as good as ever. John Roberts talked to her

She looked strikingly attractive in an old-fashioned style, a black tracksuit with three white stripes down the sleeves, part of the lastest Adidas collection. She smiled when complimented, and said it was the line of some 15 years ago and that she liked it because it was simple. Life has been anything but simple for Steffi Graf since she left Wimbledon a year ago, the first defending women's singles champion ever to lose in the first round.

A disappointing 1994 on the courts was made to appear insignificant when a chronic bone-spur condition in the lower back threatened to end her magnificent career. Try as she does not to worry about the injury, there are constant reminders. "It's difficult," the 26-year-old German says, "because you still have to do all the treatments every day. Even if you have no problems, you've still got to do everything so that it stays that way.

"I do stretching for 15 minutes before and after breakfast, and I have treatment for half an hour, depending on how it is, and then I have a massage on it, which takes another half-hour." This applies whether she is playing or not. "If I am home I do even more. I have special baths and do various exercises. I don't really think it's a burden, or it's something that's in the back of my mind that I worry too much about."

On the practice courts, and after her matches, she and her coach, Heinz Gunthardt, endeavour to ignore the problem. "Maybe this sounds a bit crude," Gunthardt says, "but if you once decide you are going to play with a back the way she has, I don't think you should talk about it all the time, because it's there.

"I know her back doesn't feel great, but if that's the main concern, we're not concentrating on what we should be doing. If it gets to a point where she doesn't feel like she can practise, she'll tell me. But I'm not going to ask her every 30 minutes, every time she's making a face, 'Okay, is your back hurting?' Because I think the whole attitude during practice would be so bad, so negative, that you couldn't get any results."

Graf's results after being unable to defend the Australian Open championship in January have been remarkable: 25 matches without defeat, culminating in an emotional triumph at the French Open a fortnight ago, accomplished without prior match practice on the slow, red clay courts.

Her only worries in Paris were her lack of substantial preparation and the usual viral infection which seems to ambush her at Stade Roland Garros. Her success in overcoming both problems, and regaining the status of world No1 from Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, has increased her confidence of renewed success on the Wimbledon lawns, even though a sprained wrist has restricted her preparation.

"It's going to be less pressure this time, because I have nothing really to lose. I lost first round - how much worse can you get?" she says, laughing. "You know that I always put a lot of pressure on myself, and I always want to do well. So that pressure will always be there. But I think because I didn't do very well last year I'm really looking forward to being back."

Losing to the American, Lori McNeil, on that dismal, rain-affected first Tuesday of last year's tournament has not, she says, preyed on her mind. "I have been asked a lot of times if that was the worst defeat of my life. It absolutely wasn't, because I was playing bad. I didn't play well in Hamburg or Berlin, I played terrible in Paris, and I had absolutely no confidence. And I played McNeil on a grass court."

If there was one unseeded player likely to beat her in the first round at Wimbledon, she agrees, it was McNeil, whose attacking style was perfectly suited to the situation. "But if you want to win," Graf reasons, "you've got to play anybody that comes around. I can't say I felt afraid of the match, and I felt I was practising really good.

"It was just that we'd had two weeks of sunshine, and that day it was raining. I couldn't really practise under those conditions. Always for the first two or three days the grass is higher, and it was a little wet and slippery, so it was difficult. And I just didn't play as good.

"I left the same night. There was only one flight going somewhere close. We flew into Switzerland and drove to Germany from Switzerland. I just wanted to get away, and I left the next morning for America by myself. I think sometimes you need to be by yourself and to think about the weeks that are behind you, and what you can change the next time to make things better.

"I had such a great start of the season in Key Biscayne [in March]. I was really tired of tennis after Key Biscayne, and instead of taking a little time away I kind of pushed myself even harder. I was practising three times a day. I was practising so much, I came into Hamburg and I couldn't move anymore. I didn't know what the hell was going on. But I just way over-trained." In America, she relaxed and did not concern herself much with what was taking place in London SW19. "In general, I don't watch a lot of tennis on television, because, anyway, it's difficult to get the feeling of how fast the players are playing. And I see tennis all my life. You try to do something different. I did see a little bit of the final, maybe a set or something, but I didn't see too much."

Graf has seen enough of Conchita Martinez - she defeated the Spaniard in the 1993 semi-finals, 7-6, 6-3 - to regard the defending champion as the main danger. "Absolutely," she says. "Of all the players, she has the most variety in her game. She can adjust to different surfaces. Her serve really drives you out. She can play from the back, and sometimes she can come in, too, with the slice. She can return very well, and she definitely passes very well. I think she has more chance, looking at Arantxa or Mary [Pierce] or Mary Joe [Fernandez], or Kimiko Date."

Of Pierce, the Canadian-born, American-raised French contender who is about to make her Wimbledon debut, Graf is somewhat dismissive: "I don't think it's going to be her favourite ground, and I don't think it's going to be her favourite surface."

Part of the fun for Graf will be competing in the doubles with Martina Navratilova, whose farewell to the singles in last year's final against Martinez was the highlight of the tournament. "I think it's going to make things a little bit more relaxing. We've got to take it seriously, we want to do well, but maybe it will not be as tense and not as concentrated, a way of getting away a little bit from the singles, too."

But is Navratilova likely to allow her to venture anywhere near the net? Graf laughs. "I think she's going to force me to do that, probably, knowing her. I think the match practice is going to be good, because I have not been able to do a lot of serve-volleys or come in a lot."

It may appear cavilling to point to technical flaws in Graf's game, which has won for her 16 Grand Slam singles championships and an Olympic gold medal, but she seemed to lack the confidence to go for the corners with her overhead shots against Sanchez Vacario in the French final, and the famed forehand sometimes boomed off-target.

"Usually it's footwork," Gunthardt says, analysing the hooked forehands missed down the line after Graf had run around her backhand and shaped up to hit the ball across the court. "If you want to get really technical, she has a tendency to bounce around a lot. And when she's in the air and jumps straight up, and the ball happens to bounce just a touch wrong, her timing is off. It's like Fred Flintstone. If you're in the air, you can't move; you're not going anywhere.

"Steffi has a tendency to do that when she gets a little nervous. She wants to hit the ball harder. Instead of staying down and going for the ball, she goes up, and she can't hit through the ball anywhere. In general, I feel that she's always going to miss a few forehands. The most important thing is that she has one of the best forehands in the game."

Graf, a natural athlete, is concerned with adopting a degree of caution. "I wish I wouldn't try to close out the points so quickly. I don't have to. I'm trying to play longer points, but my natural game is to try to finish them. I wish I would be a little more patient. Sometimes I try to push myself to take my time a little more between points. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it's difficult for me to calm myself down."

That may not be a problem in the days ahead. The speed of the grass courts favours the bold, and Graf has grown to love them. "Thinking back to when I first came to a grass court, which was in Australia when I was 13 years old, after two days I was saying, 'I never want to go on this surface ever again'. I was so frustrated. I didn't know what the grass court was for and why they played on it. My attitude changed totally the year I got to the final [1987], when I beat Pam [Shriver] in the semis easily. From then on it's been my favourite."

Setting aside last year's woes, she is strongly fancied to win the singles title for a sixth time, a number shared by Billie Jean King, Suzanne Lenglen and Blanche Bingley-Hillyard, who are jointly third on the all-time list. Graf's doubles partner, of course, has nine.