The final of the women’s singles at the French Open takes place on Saturday, with top seed and world number 1 Aryna Sabalenka up against second seed Coco Gauff.
If Sabalenka wins, it would be her fourth grand slam singles title and leave her only missing Wimbledon to complete the set. A fine achievement, no doubt, but still quite a way short of Steffi Graf – this week marks the 26th anniversary of the 22nd and last of her major victories.
While my mother often found herself in the same living room as a televised game of football or rugby or Gaelic football or hurling, tennis was the one sport she went out of her way to watch.
Summer holidays from school were ushered in with the Wimbledon fortnight and, during the 1990s, it was generally a case of inevitable victories for Pete Sampras in the men’s and Graf in the women’s.
Possessed of an inbuilt empathy for the underdog, she respected Graf without cheering her on – her favourite was Gabriela Sabatini. When Graf lost the 1994 opening round to Lori McNeil, it felt like a shock to the system but the German was back to win the next two titles.
Then, injury prevented her defence in 1997 – the first year since 1986 where she didn’t win a grand slam title – and 1998 was similarly frustrating. An era was ending, but there was to be one last kick.
Seeded sixth, she saw off Magdalena Maleeva, Inés Gorrochategui, Åsa Carlsson and Anna Kournikova to reach the quarter-finals without dropping a set; there she overcame second seed Lindsay Davenport before beating third seed Monica Seles in the semi-finals.
That set up the dream final against top seed Martina Hingis; the once-imperial force against her apparent successor. The Swiss player had won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open in 1997 and had added the two Australian Opens since – but, amazingly, that tally would never increase.
In winning all of those Wimbledon titles, Graf was of course clad in all-white as per rule while her other major victories had also been in mainly-white outfits. The 1999 French Open provided a contrast, however – all-navy with gold sleeves and white panelling with three stripes of different widths (similar to the front of the 1986 Wales shirt) on the lower sleeve. The logo of mineral water company Apollinaris also appeared on the sleeves.
The change in palette worked – while Hingis took the first set, Graf came back to win 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. A month later, back in the usual white, she battled her way to another Wimbledon final but was beaten by Davenport.
That proved to be her last grand-slam match as injury forced her retirement that August at the age of 30. She remains the only player, male or female, to have won each of the singles grand slams at least four times.
