STEPHANIE GRAF, THE TENNIS GOLDEN SLAM WINNER

The Grandma loves tennis, and today she has enjoyed watching an amazing match played in Roland Garros in 1999 between Martina Hingis and Steffi Graf to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the German tennis player, who is considered one of the best ever.

Stefanie Maria Steffi Graf (born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player.

She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks (more than 7 years) and won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, which ranks second since the introduction of the Open Era in 1968 and third all-time behind Margaret Court and Serena Williams.

In 1988, she became the only tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year.

Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each Grand Slam tournament at least four times.

Graf was ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks -the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings.

She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list, after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three Grand Slam tournaments in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).

Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game.

She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since hard court was introduced as a surface at the US Open in 1987.

More information: WTA Tennis

Consequently, Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five Grand Slams were decided on only grass and clay. Graf reached thirteen consecutive major singles finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them.

She won 5 consecutive major singles tournaments (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 major singles finals.

Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Navratilova included Graf on the top of her list of the greatest players ever.

The year of her retirement, Billie Jean King said, Steffi is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time.

In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children.

Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with countryman Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it has remained a highly popular sport ever since.

More information: Tennis Fame

Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938-30 November 2013).

When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighbouring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.

Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany.

Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 282–32 (89 percent) (87–10 at the French Open, 75–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open).

Her singles win-loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked World No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991, tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total of 377 weeks overall.

More information: Bleacher Report

You can have a certain arrogance,
and I think that's fine,
but what you should never lose is
the respect for the others.

Steffi Graf

ELENA JONES: IN SEARCH OF THE ATP NUMBER ONE

Elena Jones in the Stade Roland Garros

Elena Jones has decided to leave The Jones family to dedicate more time to her professional tennis career. She's preparing her next appearance in Roland Garros and she needs time to train and to be concentrated only in tennis. 

The family has a mix of feelings: for one hand, they are very happy because she's going to reach her dream, but for other hand, they're going to miss her a lot because she's a loved member of the family. The Jones think that Elena deserves the best in her personal life and they're going to support her decision and cheer her to try to win as trophies as she can.

Roland Garros is going to start in less than a month and Elena wants to participate in the individual matches but also in the doubles. She's going to play with Tatiana Golovin, Elena's idol. They are old friends because they shared their childhood in Astana in the Republic of Kazakhstan and now they're going to stay together again playing in this new edition of the French Open. This event is very important to Tatiana because she is going to return to play tennis after some years being retired and she's going to move from New York, where she's living nowadays to Paris only to compete with Elena.

The Grandma wants to thank to Elena her commitment and her effort and she hopes the best for her because she deserves it. This old woman is a great tennis fan and she can't forget one of the best female finals in Roland Garros. It was in 1999, the final match between Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis, an incredible match full of emotion and amazing tennis.

More information: Roland Garros

Elena Jones is watching her idol, Tatiana Golovin

Tatiana Golovin, in Russian Татья́на Григорьевна Голови́на was born in 1988. She's a Russian-born French retired professional tennis player. 

She won the 2004 French Open mixed doubles event with Richard Gasquet, and reached the singles quarterfinal at the 2006 US Open, losing to the eventual champion Maria Sharapova. 

Her highest singles ranking is world No. 12. In 2008, she was diagnosed with lower back inflammation and was forced to stop playing competitive tennis indefinitely.

Golovin was born in Moscow, and spent six years at Nick Bollettieri's tennis camp in Bradenton, Florida. In the latter part of her career she was coached by former World No. 1 Mats Wilander, having previously been coached by Brad Gilbert and Dean Goldfine.

Golovin made her ITF Circuit debut at Cagnes-sur-Mer in France in 2002. She played in three more ITF events, including one semifinal, later that year, but she failed to qualify for the French Open.

More information: Tatiana Golovin

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she had partnered with Pauline Parmentier, but the team had to withdraw due to Golovin's back injury. After missing a total of four successive months due to medical concerns with her back, she eventually pulled out of the 2008 U.S. Open.

I never look back, I look forward.

Steffi Graf

ROLAND-GARROS: OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS IN SPORTS

Roland Garros

The Jones are visiting the Stade Roland-Garros in Paris. Elena Jones is excited with this visit because she's a professional tennis player and one of her dreams is to arrive to play in this court. Tha family is learning some interesting things about occupational hazards in sports, in this case, in tennis.

The French Open, also called Roland-Garros is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks between late May and early June at the Stade Roland-Garros in Paris. The venue is named after the French aviator Roland Garros. 

It is the premier clay court tennis championship event in the world and the second of four annual Grand Slam tournaments, the other three being the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. 

More information: Roland-Garros

The French Open is currently the only Grand Slam event held on clay, and it is the zenith of the spring clay court season. Because of the seven rounds needed for a championship, the slow-playing surface and the best-of-five-set men's singles matches, without a tiebreak in the final set, the event is widely considered to be the most physically demanding tennis tournament in the world.

The Grandma with René Lacoste & Suzanne Lenglen

Officially named in French Championnats Internationaux de France de tennis and Tournoi de Roland-Garros, the French International Championships of Tennis or Roland Garros Tournament in English, the tournament is referred to in English as the French Open and alternatively as Roland Garros, which is the designation used by the tournament itself in all languages. 

French spelling rules dictate that in the name of a place or event named after a person, the elements of the name are joined together with a hyphen. Therefore, the names of the stadium and the tournament are hyphenated as Roland-Garros.

More information: The Telegraph

In 1891 the Championnat de France, which is commonly referred to in English as the French Championships, began. They were only open to tennis players who were members of French clubs. The first winner was a Briton, H. Briggs, who was a Paris resident. The first women's singles tournament, with four entries, was held in 1897. The mixed doubles event was added in 1902 and the women's doubles in 1907. This French club members only tournament was played until 1924, using four different venues during that period:

-Île de Puteaux, in Puteaux, played on sand laid out on a bed of rubble.

-The Racing Club de France, in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, played on clay.

-For one year, 1909, it was played at the Société Athlétique de la Villa Primrose in Bordeaux, on clay.

-Tennis Club de Paris, club opened in 1895, at Auteuil, Paris, played on clay.

René Lacoste & the Mousquetaires

Another tournament, the World Hard Court Championships, is sometimesconsidered the precursor to the French Open as it was open to international competitors. It was held on clay courts at Stade Français in Saint-Cloud from 1912 to 1914, then, after World War I, was contested there again in 1920, 1921 and 1923, with the 1922 tournament held at Brussels, Belgium. Winners of this tournament included world no. 1's such as Tony Wilding from New Zealand (1913, 1914) and Bill Tilden from the US (1921). In 1924 there was no World Hard Court Championships due to tennis being played at the Paris Olympic Games.

More information: BBC

In 1925, the French Championships became open to all amateurs internationally and was designated a major championship by the ILTF. It was held at the Stade Français in Saint-Cloud, site of the previous World Hardcourt Championships, in 1925 and 1927, on clay courts. In 1926 the Racing Club de France hosted the event in Paris, site of the previous French Championship, also on clay.

The Grandma watching Fred Perry on court, 1930

After the Mousquetaires or Philadelphia Four (René Lacoste, Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet, and Jacques Brugnon) won the Davis Cup on American soil in 1927, the French decided to defend the cup in 1928 at a new tennis stadium at Porte d'Auteuil. 

The Stade de France had offered the tennis authorities three hectares of land with the condition that the new stadium must be named after the World War I pilot, Roland Garros. The new Stade de Roland Garros, and its Center Court, which was named Court Philippe Chatrier in 1988, hosted that Davis Cup challenge. In 1928, the French Internationals were moved there, and the event has been held there ever since.

More information: CCOHS

During World War II the tournament was held from 1941 through 1945 on the same grounds but these editions are not recognized by the French governing body, Fédération Française de Tennis. In 1946 and 1947, the French Championships were held after Wimbledon, making it the third Grand Slam event of the year. In 1968, the French Championships became the first Grand Slam tournament to go open, allowing both amateurs and professionals to compete.

Elena Jones, Roland-Garros trophy and an official ball

Since 1981, new prizes have been presented: the Prix Orange, for the player demonstrating the best sportsmanship and cooperative attitude with the press, the Prix Citron, for the player with the strongest character and personality, and the Prix Bourgeon, for the tennis player revelation of the year. 

In another novelty, since 2006 the tournament has begun on a Sunday, featuring 12 singles matches played on the three main courts. Additionally, on the eve of the tournament's opening, the traditional Benny Berthet exhibition day takes place, where the profits go to different charity associations. 

More information: Better Health

In March 2007, it was announced that the event would provide equal prize money for both men and women in all rounds for the first time. In 2010, it was announced that the French Open was considering a move away from Roland Garros as part of a continuing rejuvenation of the tournament. Plans to renovate and expand Roland Garros have put aside any such consideration, and the tournament remains in its long time home.

Download Roland-Garros in the city: How it all began

Tennis just a game, family is forever. 

Serena Williams