In recent years the WTA has become a bit confusing at times. Sometimes one has to wonder if the tour still is a tennis tour or if it is a model circus. And if the girls are still focusing on tennis or if the sport is just a stepstone for a career in modeling. People who have started following the WTA in recent years may think that I'm exaggerating. But following the sport since the late 70s I can assure you that things have become different in recent years. I'm just not sure if for the better or for the worse.
It is not a phenomenon of recent years that female tennis professionals get offered much money for modeling sessions, or for even posing naked. In some way this isn't surprising since many of the players are beautiful young ladies. And even Steffi received an offer in 1987 at the age of 18 of 500,000 German Marks (around $270,000 at that time) for "erotic photographs" for the German edition of the Penthouse magazine. Her reaction came promptly and left no space for interpretations: "I really laughed about it. I was really surprised that someone could get the idea to even think about it. It's ridiculous, strange." And Peter Graf added: "Steffi's a tennis player and not a model. It is astonishing what ideas people come up with. We had a good laugh but we made it clear that the answer was no."[1]
Yet in 1997 she agreed to pose for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition.[2] One may wonder why. Did she change her mind in the meantime? Did she change as a person, turning from a private person into a public person? Superficially seen it may seem so, but when looking at this more thoroughly it becomes clear that things are different.
One can speculate about her motivation to agree to the swimsuit photographs. A likely explanation is that she wanted to show her athletic body, the beauty of an athletic body. We don't know for sure. But what we know for sure is that she didn't do it because of a desire of self-exposing. The photographer, Walter Iooss, had a difficult and challenging time capturing her. In an interview he stated that "she disliked too many aspects of her body".[3] That's surely not the attitude of someone who wants to show off.
So, things are not what they seemed to be at first glance. And this is typical in some way, typical for Steffi. People who base their opinion on superficial impressions sometimes call her "cold", "emotionless", "a machine". But people who invest some time and effort to look into things more deeper, to gain and process some information, really get rewarded. They will find a warm-hearted, sensitive, compassionate personality. A caring mother and wife. A family-person that values people over anything else. Often there is a considerable difference between the persona[4] and the personality, and Steffi is a particular example for this. Although being a pretty private person, she allows us to take brief but valuable insights into her true personality. But not everyone will find this treasure. One has to put some effort into this, and one has to be sensitive.
If you are interested in getting to know the real Steffi underneath the exterior, I invite you to join her admiration thread on Tennisforum.com:
http://www.tennisforum.com/showthread.php?t=401056
It is a very active thread, already in volume 2, but volume 1 with around 5000 posts is still accessible. And maybe by this occasion you even will make new friends, you can meet a lot of nice people there.
But now, back to the original question. So, is she a model? She could be, but she deliberately decided against it. But in some way she is a model though. A role model. As a mother, wife, philantropist, and simply as a great personality.
References:
[1] There are many articles about this that can be found on the internet. One example is:
Lakeland Ledger - 30th June 1987
[2] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/swimsuit/collection/athletes/steffi_graf.html
[3] http://www.allbusiness.com/humanities-social-science/journalism/13267241-1.html
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona
It is not a phenomenon of recent years that female tennis professionals get offered much money for modeling sessions, or for even posing naked. In some way this isn't surprising since many of the players are beautiful young ladies. And even Steffi received an offer in 1987 at the age of 18 of 500,000 German Marks (around $270,000 at that time) for "erotic photographs" for the German edition of the Penthouse magazine. Her reaction came promptly and left no space for interpretations: "I really laughed about it. I was really surprised that someone could get the idea to even think about it. It's ridiculous, strange." And Peter Graf added: "Steffi's a tennis player and not a model. It is astonishing what ideas people come up with. We had a good laugh but we made it clear that the answer was no."[1]
Yet in 1997 she agreed to pose for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition.[2] One may wonder why. Did she change her mind in the meantime? Did she change as a person, turning from a private person into a public person? Superficially seen it may seem so, but when looking at this more thoroughly it becomes clear that things are different.
One can speculate about her motivation to agree to the swimsuit photographs. A likely explanation is that she wanted to show her athletic body, the beauty of an athletic body. We don't know for sure. But what we know for sure is that she didn't do it because of a desire of self-exposing. The photographer, Walter Iooss, had a difficult and challenging time capturing her. In an interview he stated that "she disliked too many aspects of her body".[3] That's surely not the attitude of someone who wants to show off.
So, things are not what they seemed to be at first glance. And this is typical in some way, typical for Steffi. People who base their opinion on superficial impressions sometimes call her "cold", "emotionless", "a machine". But people who invest some time and effort to look into things more deeper, to gain and process some information, really get rewarded. They will find a warm-hearted, sensitive, compassionate personality. A caring mother and wife. A family-person that values people over anything else. Often there is a considerable difference between the persona[4] and the personality, and Steffi is a particular example for this. Although being a pretty private person, she allows us to take brief but valuable insights into her true personality. But not everyone will find this treasure. One has to put some effort into this, and one has to be sensitive.
If you are interested in getting to know the real Steffi underneath the exterior, I invite you to join her admiration thread on Tennisforum.com:
http://www.tennisforum.com/showthread.php?t=401056
It is a very active thread, already in volume 2, but volume 1 with around 5000 posts is still accessible. And maybe by this occasion you even will make new friends, you can meet a lot of nice people there.
But now, back to the original question. So, is she a model? She could be, but she deliberately decided against it. But in some way she is a model though. A role model. As a mother, wife, philantropist, and simply as a great personality.
References:
[1] There are many articles about this that can be found on the internet. One example is:
Lakeland Ledger - 30th June 1987
[2] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/swimsuit/collection/athletes/steffi_graf.html
[3] http://www.allbusiness.com/humanities-social-science/journalism/13267241-1.html
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona
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