Steffi Graf Biography : 1976




1976 ...humble beginning...

Baden Tennis Center- 1976

As its head coach, Boris Breskvar likes to accredit the Baden Tennis Center for helping Steffi and Becker become great champions. The center incorporated traditional training techniques and tactics with a modern scientific approach to physical and psychological conditioning. Breskvar would work closely with Prof. Kermann Reider, director of the Sport Science Institute of Heidelberg's celebrated university. Prof. Kermann worked with Steffi and Becker for 5 years. The children would be put through a battery of tests to help determine their strengths and limitations. Steffi, for example, was found to have weak ankles and showed she needed to work on leg extensor muscles. Consequently, she was instructed to do specific exercises to help strengthen them. She was also discouraged from playing soccer because she'd be more prone to injury. Instead, she was encouraged to play basketball, which she became very good at.

Steffi would travel with her mom to events, usually in a Porshe - thanks to Peter Graf's influence in his job. Although Heidi Graf couldn't play as much tennis as before due to back problems she started having at about the time Steffi was six, she would usually be up to the task of warming-up her daughter before her matches. She would countinue to be Steffi 's constant traveling companion until about 1984, at which time her husband would take over those duties.

Peter Graf would devote a lot of his time to helping Steffi with her tennis.

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