Steffi Graf: grace personified.

For connoisseurs of the game, there has rarely been a game so fluid, so beautiful and so well rounded: a powerful, fiercely accurate serve, a devastating forehand, extraordinary leg work, a single-handed backhand slice that is a thing of beauty and, above all, unbelievable efficiency. Naturally those skills led to 22 Grand Slam titles, 377 total weeks as world number one – a record – and heaps of accomplishments, including 1988, when Steffi Graf scored a Grand Slam and an Olympic Gold Medal. An exceptional champion deserves exceptional reverence. Even when she retired, the German did it with incomparable class. In 1999, though she was plagued by recurrent injuries, she won her last Roland-Garros title – her sixth – buoyed by a Parisian crowd that was rooting for her over Martina Hingis. "I feel French," she said on the court after hoisting her Cup. She followed it up with an appearance in the Wimbledon finals, then withdrew from the Carlsbad tournament because of an injury. With no equivocations, the German decided to draw the curtain on her 17-year career, when she was ranked number three in the world. In 2001, she married Andre Agassi, her fellow winner in Paris in 1999. Since then, they have enjoyed happy times with their two children in Las Vegas. Never sounding a false note, that's so Steffi!

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Founder of the "Children for Tomorrow" association YouTube URL link: Player highlight video