While looking for a gem of a song by Hugh Laurie (who is something of a comedian, and a good one to boot), I found this other song:
Which got me re-interested in tennis. I looked up Steffi Graf on wikipedia. She's widely hailed as the best women's singles player of all time and has accomplished things that no other tennis player has, male or female. For instance:
"In 1988, Graf became the first and to date only player to achieve the "Golden Slam" by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same year."
She won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second only to Margaret Court (I had to look her up. She was also legendary). Steffi's the only player to have won each of the Grand Slam titles at least 4 times each.
That's crazy good.
This got me thinking about how good it really is. I started looking up women's tennis players that I know. How good are they?
Martina Hingis - 5 Grand Slam singles titles
(She's retired now, since she's an ancient 29 years old and because, oh, she flunked a drug test.)
Venus Williams - 7 Grand Slam singles titles
Serena Williams - 10 Grand Slam singles titles
(Which means that both Williams COMBINED haven't won as many as Steffi.)
Jennifer Capriati - 3 Grand Slam singles titles
Monica Seles - 9 Grand Slam singles titles
How about some of the oldies?
Martina Navratilova - 18 Grand Slam singles titles
Billie Jean King - 12 Grand Slam singles titles
Chris Evert - 18 Grand Slam singles titles
Margaret Court - 24 Grand Slam singles titles
Some of these players are better at doubles, like Billie Jean King. And Court won 62 Grand Slam titles, total, when you add in the doubles titles.
Main point of this post (besides that Steffi Graf is amazing): I love tennis. For my birthday I told Rob that I want to watch part of the French Open with him. The men's singles finals are Sunday from 9 - 2 ET. Which is precisely when I'm at church. I thought for a second about skipping church to watch the finals. It's my birthday, after all. ... But I can't do it. ... Maybe I'll just be "sick" on Sunday. ... Or maybe we'll just watch the women's singles semifinals from 9 - 12 ET on Saturday.
(A note on Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. In the song, Hugh alludes to Günter Parche, who is the man who stabbed Monica Seles because he was obsessed with Steffi. I just think it's funny that when articles talk about Günter Parche, they have to say he was the "deranged fan" who stabbed Seles. As if we wouldn't have gathered that he was deranged if they hadn't spelled it out for us. As if we might wonder if he was an Ethics Professor who just logically thought it would make the most sense for Steffi's career. ... Of COURSE he was deranged. He STABBED Monica Seles!)
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