Last exit Wimbledon - Steffi Graf

Lindsay Davenport's first Wimbledon final in 1999 was at the same time Steffi Graf's last. Davenport won 6-4, 7-5.
"I won't be back," Graf said after the match. "I won't be here as a player again." And she wasn't - a couple of weeks later she announced her retirement from the women's tour: "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish."

In return, she was getting her life back, or rather starting over, eventually living her personal life. The hardness and fierceness she had shown on the world's centre courts soon was completely gone, giving way for the real Steffi Graf, so long suppressed by an ambitious, dominant tennis father and later by the demands of professional tennis.

Steffi Graf, sculptural study for a life-size bronze statue at the
Berlin tennis club "LTTC Rot-Weiss", 1999.

A tournament, kind of "incorporating" Steffi Graf, were the "German Open" at the Berlin tennis club "LTTC Rot-Weiss". In 2000, the club named it's brand-new, 10 million € centre court stadium "Steffi Graf Stadion".
In 1999, I was apprentice of the Berlin sculptor Hajo Pogoda, we developed a sculptural project: A Steffi Graf statue integrated in the architectural context of the new stadium, inspired by the statues of Fred Perry in Wimbledon, Rod Laver in Melbourne and the "Three Musketry" at Roland Garros. The architect of the stadium, Prof. Herms, when first introduced to the idea, found it amazing, but the club soon turned it down. The project never was realised, a metal plate was attached instead.

12 years later everything has vanished. The "German Open" do not exist any more. The "LTTC Rot-Weiss", steeped in tradition, is broke and faded into obscurity. The "Steffi Graf Stadion" is due to demolition. The model of the "Steffi Graf"-project was destroyed in a disastrous fire at Pogoda's studio.

Remaining are a photograph, a lot of memories and Steffi Graf, who eventually found her fortune.