Weeks at No.1: 377...1st on all-time list
Year-End No.1 Finishes: 8...1st on all-time list
Tour Singles Titles: 107...3rd on all-time listGrand Slam Singles Titles: 22...2nd on all-time list
Career Match Win-Loss: 900-115
Win-Loss Percentage: .887...2nd on all-time list

Comparing greats from different eras, and trying to identify the best of all time, is a tricky business. But if it must be done, one name provokes less controversy than the rest. In 1982, having routed 13-year-old Steffi Graf in Stuttgart, Tracy Austin declared: "We have a hundred like her back in the States." But by the end of the German's career no less an expert than Billie Jean King would announce, "Steffi is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time."

It's hard to argue with the statistics. Graf's 22 Grand Slam singles titles (from 31 finals) are second only to Margaret Court, but even the most ardent fan of the great Australian would concede Graf's haul was the bigger feat. Graf is the only player to have won all four majors at least four times each and her calendar year Grand Slam in 1988 was achieved on grass, clay and hardcourts; Court and Maureen Connolly won theirs when the Australian and US titles were played on grass. Graf also burnished her achievement with gold at the Seoul Olympics.

But ironically, 1988 was only her third best year in terms of win-loss percentage (72-3; .960). She reached the final of every tournament played in 1987 (75-2; .974) and 1989 (86-2; .977), and won at least seven tournaments a year for 11 straight years (1986-96). Including the majors and five season-ending championships, Graf collected 107 singles titles, bettered only by Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. By the end of her career she had topped the rankings for a record 377 weeks - including 186 consecutive weeks from 1987 to 1991; her eight year-end No.1 finishes also remains the record.

View a gallery of Graf's spectacular career.

As well as collecting trophies seemingly at will, Graf raised the stakes in women's tennis. Evert and Navratilova hit the ball hard, to be sure. But Graf - who registered her first wins over the two legends in 1986 - brought a new, explosive tempo to the game.

Fearlessness aside, the main weapon in her arsenal was the forehand, a lethal rotor-blade of a stroke that pulled Graf skyward and earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand. It may well be the single best shot women's tennis has seen. Graf's inside-out forehand was breathtaking enough, but the coup de théâtre of her game was the forehand down the line - to her (right-handed) opponent's forehand side. For this, Graf positioned herself in her own backhand corner, confident she could chase down all but the most accurate ball to the open court.

Graf's single-handed backhand, nominally the weaker wing, was hardly a flaw. She could drive the ball, with topspin for interest, but it was her slice that was a class above anything else on offer from her generation. Low and skidding, and deathly accurate, it was more than enough to wear down opponents in long rallies, and set up short balls for the forehand putaway. Rounding out her game, Graf boasted a powerful and accurate serve, and good touch on the volley - when it came to that.

All this made Graf an exciting foil for an array of opponents; her career was defined by several satisfying rivalries, and she was a protagonist in more than her share of gripping Grand Slam finals.

In 1988, as part of her Grand Slam run, Graf ended Navratilova's six-year reign at Wimbledon with a fascinating inter-generational display. For the most part she had the measure of her nearest rival age-wise, Gabriela Sabatini, but the differences between them captivated fans. The stabbing of Monica Seles by a crazed Graf fan at Hamburg in 1993 interrupted, and to a degree ruined what might have become a rivalry to match Evert-Navratilova. Still, the two played several classics after Seles made her comeback in 1995.
The dogged Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario also gave Graf plenty to think about, especially on clay, while Graf's final Grand Slam win, over Martina Hingis at Roland Garros in 1999, remains etched in the mind - not least because a traumatized Hingis was three points from victory. Fans later voted the match the greatest in the 30-year history of the WTA, with media citing Graf's marathon loss to Seles at Roland Garros in 1992.

Click here to see what other tennis greats say about Graf.

Mindful, perhaps, of the way injuries had wrecked the careers of Austin and Andrea Jaeger, Graf's father Peter - who is credited with cultivating his daughter's prodigious talent before Pavel Slozil and Heinz Gunthardt took over - limited his daughter's schedule in the early days. Even so, although she enjoyed a second period of dominance in the mid 1990s - winning six Grand Slams contested in a row - by her late twenties Graf's body was feeling the strain. From 1996 she underwent a series of operations to remove bone chips in her left knee and feet and chronic back pain was also a problem.
At one point Graf even dropped off the rankings, but that autumnal win over Hingis at Roland Garros - three years after her previous Grand Slam victory - was followed by a runner-up finish to Lindsay Davenport at Wimbledon. By this time the writing was on the wall, yet Graf refused to confirm it would be her last Wimbledon. "It was Lindsay's day," she would later say - pure Steffi. In any case, when she officially called it quits after a second round loss to Amy Frazier at San Diego a month later, Graf was still No.3 in the world. Not for her would there be a sad-to-watch decline.

Read fan tributes to Graf and submit your own.

In its own way Graf's retirement has been just as golden. Initially she maintained a presence in the stands, supporting then-boyfriend Andre Agassi as he continued to play the ATP Tour. The pair married in October 2001, a month before Graf gave birth to their son Jaden, and in 2003 daughter Jaz Elle was born. The least showy of tennis' great champions found herself living in Las Vegas, Agassi's home town.

For the most part Stefanie Graf, as she now prefers to be known, has kept a low profile, occasional public appearances adding to her mystique. But she continues to support the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig, Germany, which was founded in 1991, and is also the founder and chairperson of Children for Tomorrow, a non-profit organization that develops projects to support children who have been traumatized by war and other crises.

When she does come out to play, the influence of her husband's more gregarious nature is plain to see. Looking as lithe as ever, Graf stole the show at celebrations to herald the new roof over Centre Court at Wimbledon in May 2009. And in March 2010, miked up and hamming it up with the best of them, she took part in the Hit for Haiti charity exhibition at Indian Wells, partnering Davenport against Navratilova and Justine Henin.

Indeed, the girl who once seemed so unrelentingly serious - "Steffi, I would love to see one picture of you in the papers in which you are smiling," her mother Heidi once said to her - now glows with contentment. Quietly determined, modest and gracious in victory and defeat, Graf was always an enigma who preferred to let her racquet do the talking. In revealing more of her personality she has made it easier for fans to see how great she truly is.

Notable H2H: vs. Capriati 10-1, vs. Coetzer 11-4, Davenport 8-6, Evert 7-6, Hingis 7-2, Martínez, 13-1, Navratilova 9-9, Novotna 29-4, Pierce 4-2, Sabatini 29-11, Sánchez-Vicario 28-8, Seles 10-5