13 points.
No one expected 13th seed Natasha Zvereva to actually beat Steffi Graf. At the 1988 French Open, Graf was the world number one and the defending champion. She hadn’t lost to anyone other than Martina Navratilova or Gabriela Sabatini in more than two years. Sabatini pushed her to a second-set tiebreak in the semifinals, but the German’s first five opponents managed a grand total of eleven games.
Zvereva, in the other half of the draw, was the surprise of the tournament. She upset Navratilova in the fourth round, then backed up the victory with a routine quarter-final defeat of sixth-seed Helena Suková. She was only 17 years old; maybe she had a few more tricks up her sleeve? In the final, perhaps she could make things interesting and keep Steffi on court for more than an hour.
Or not. In her first service game, Zvereva reached 40-30. Graf ran around a wide serve to launch her trademark inside-out forehand, erasing the game point. That was as close as the Belarusian would get. Graf won 6-0, 6-0. Official match time was 34 minutes, which charitably included two minutes of rain delay. The German allowed Zvereva just 13 points, three of them in that one early game.
As usual, the defining shot of the day was the one that earned Steffi her nickname, Fräulein Forehand. Graf hit 9 forehand winners in the compressed space of a mere 61 points. Another 11 forehands forced errors off the Zvereva racket. In the memorable words of Rex Bellamy, the challenger “was reduced to lolloping, lunging helplessness and public shame.”
