Playing Style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive, which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand; and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner, and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use this less frequently, opting more often for her very effective backhand slice. In baseline rallies, she used the slice almost exclusively. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line, and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to 180 km/h (110 mph), making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis, and was a capable volleyer.
Read more about this topic: Steffi Graf
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or style:
“When as the rye reach to the chin,
And chopcherry, chopcherry ripe within,
Strawberries swimming in the cream,
And school-boys playing in the stream;”
—George Peele (1559–1596)
“On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)