WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED ON THAT DAY?
On May 25, 1983, 13-year-old Steffi Graf became the youngest player in tennis history to win a match in a Grand Slam tournament. The young German, aged 13 years, 11 months and 10 days, defeated Carina Karlsson (6-4, 6-1) in the first round of Roland-Garros, a tournament which she would go on to win six times during her Hall-of-Fame career.
THE PLAYERS INVOLVED: STEFFI GRAF AND CARINA KARLSSON
- Steffi Graf: The young German prodigy
In May 1983, Steffi Graf, from Germany, had not even turned 14, but she was already a professional tennis player. Coached by her father, she started playing tennis when she was just three, and in 1982, at the age of 12, she won the European Championships in the u-18 category. At the end of that season, having turned 13, she became the youngest girl to ever get a WTA ranking, and she turned pro in October that year.
In the first professional event she entered, she faced former world No 1 Tracy Austin, who defeated her (6-4, 6-0) and claimed that she didn’t understand the hype around the young German as there were “hundreds” of players like her in the United States.
However, this comment didn’t prevent Graf from improving, winning several matches in the first months of 1983, and climbing as high as world No 195, a ranking which enabled her to enter the Roland-Garros qualifying draw.
