“Meeting Your Match,” written by Dodie Kazanjian, first appeared in the August 2004 issue of Vogue. To explore more highlights from Vogue’s archives, subscribe to the Nostalgia newsletter here.
From their hilltop home in Tiburon, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf look out over the bay at San Francisco gleaming in the sunlight, with one tower of the Golden Gate Bridge rising mysteriously above a soft layer of clouds. The tennis world’s power couple—the most remarkable pairing of two former world No. 1 athletes—have spent the morning posing for Vogue. Both in their mid-30s, tanned and in peak shape, they radiate the smooth, controlled energy of elite athletes who, though still young by most standards, are considered veterans in their sport.
Steffi, the most dominant female player of her era, won 22 Grand Slam titles before retiring in 1999 at age 30. That July, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. Andre has won eight Grand Slams so far, and at 34—an age many consider old for tennis—he could still add to that total. While the game increasingly favors youth, and the odds are against him, it’s too soon to write him off. His incredible comeback is already legendary. After dropping to No. 141 in the rankings in 1997, he transformed himself through intense physical training and by 1999 was back at the top. He has stayed there or close ever since, winning the Australian Open the previous year and holding his own against a new generation of power hitters. “I have an insane amount of respect for him,” Andy Roddick said recently. “The way he competes—he treats every match like it’s Armageddon.”
Andre, his coach Darren Cahill, his lawyer and close friend Todd Wilson, and Gene Marshall, a Las Vegas friend helping with training, are speeding across the Golden Gate Bridge in Andre’s Lincoln Navigator. I follow nervously in my rented Pontiac, trying not to lose sight of them. Andre drives with the same speed and confidence he shows on the court, heading to the Olympic Club in San Francisco. With the French Open just two weeks away, he needs to practice on clay, similar to the courts at Roland Garros. His home court in Tiburon is hard surface, and Las Vegas—where he really lives—doesn’t have clay courts in good enough condition. We park on the road above the tennis courts at this prestigious club, whose golf course has often hosted the U.S. Open. For the next hour and a half, Darren feeds him backhands and forehands, and Andre returns them with power, hitting the lines and grunting with effort. “That’s great tennis,” Darren says more than once. (Not great enough, as it turned out; in the weeks after my visit, Agassi lost in the first round at the French Open and two other European tournaments—his first three consecutive opening-round losses since August 1997—then withdrew from Wimbledon citing a hip injury.) Still, Andre isn’t completely satisfied with his play today. He says his rhythm is slightly off and the court is too powdery.
Andre still trains harder than anyone else on the men’s tour, running up mountains and spending countless hours in the gym. “Tennis is as physical a sport as any you’ll ever play,” he tells me. “I train just as hard as I used to, but now I’m smarter about it. You learn to listen to your body—it tells you when it’s thirsty, hungry, or tired, and when to stop. I’ve figured out how to make things easier on the court. It comes down to shot selection, reading situations, controlling your intensity, and knowing when to push and when to ease up.”
LOVE ALL
Steffi is at home with her son, Jaden. Andre says he’d like to have six or seven kids. “Well,” Steffi says after a pause, “I’m turning 35. Two is great for now.”
I ask him whether he’s—Over the last five years, he has changed his game. “I’ve gotten stronger, which lets me play more aggressively and impose my will on the match rather than reacting to my opponent. I had to step up physically.” His training is surprisingly adaptable. At times, he focuses solely on strength and endurance for six weeks straight, not even touching a tennis racket. “Honestly, I won’t learn to hit the ball any better, but I can get stronger, fitter, and faster.”
Back at their home in Tiburon, after showering and changing into black shorts and a T-shirt, Andre leads me past the main swimming pool—there’s another one off the master bedroom—to an outdoor seating area by a large stone fireplace. Steffi, who just returned from shopping in Mill Valley with their children—two-and-a-half-year-old Jaden and seven-month-old Jaz—joins us, carrying Jaz on her hip. The nanny takes the baby so we can talk, with the sounds of laughter and splashing from the artificial waterfall where Jaden and Todd Wilson’s kids are playing in the background.
I begin by asking Andre and Steffi how they met.
“Well,” Andre says, “even though we’d played on the same tours and crossed paths professionally for years, we never really spent time together until March 1999.” (This was around the time his two-year marriage to Brooke Shields ended.) Brad Gilbert, his coach at the time, brought them together, knowing how much Andre admired Steffi and wanted to get to know her. “He set up a practice session for us. Later that year, we talked more, and on August 1, we went on our first date.”
I remind Steffi that in 1990, she told Vogue she wouldn’t want to marry a tennis player. Andre laughs out loud. “Yeah, all those years,” Steffi says, “I knew exactly what I wanted. And then he strutted into my life.”
“And ruined everything!” Andre jokes.
“On our first dinner, he asked me, ‘Do you want to have children?’ And I said, ‘No, I might adopt, but I don’t want my own.'”
Andre adds, “And I thought to myself, ‘Oh great, this is doomed.'”
Steffi continues, “My plans were to travel the world, work as a part-time photographer, and see wildlife up close. I had a lot of ideas, but I changed my mind very quickly.” Steffi, who retired from tennis just two days after that first dinner, had been considering it all summer in 1999. She had won the French Open that year for her 22nd Grand Slam title and reached the Wimbledon finals. “After Wimbledon, I felt pretty sure I didn’t want to play anymore,” she tells me. She’d undergone two knee surgeries and was feeling “really exhausted.” She played one more tournament in San Diego after Wimbledon, “and there I realized I didn’t want to practice anymore. I’d lost my passion, and I felt I had achieved everything I wanted.” No second thoughts? “Not one. It was completely clear. I felt at peace with my career and what I’d accomplished.”
“And that’s where I come in,” says Andre. “One thing I’ve always admired about Stef is how clear she is about her goals and how focused and committed she is. She went through the transition every athlete faces—including me. Leaving a world where you can’t remember life without tennis, and suddenly it’s over. But she handled it with tremendous grace, like everything else.”
Four years ago, when Agassi turned 30, he thought his tennis career was nearly over. He and Steffi bought the house in Tiburon in 2000 because they both loved the San Francisco area, and “I assumed, at my age, I must be close to retiring.” But his continued success on the pro tour—last year he was ranked number four—kept them from settling there full-time.UP IN ARMS
Andre, wearing a Helmut Lang turtleneck, holds his seven-month-old daughter, Jaz. “The good news,” he says, “is that when it’s time to give up the fight, I’ll be ready.”
Las Vegas is still their home. Andre grew up there as one of four children in a middle-class family. “We didn’t have everything we wanted, but we had everything we needed,” he recalls. His father, who worked in casinos, was a former Olympic boxer from Iran (of Armenian descent) and a tennis fan who introduced Andre to the sport as a toddler. By age four, Andre was hitting balls with legends like Björn Borg and Ilie Nastase when they visited.
Andre has a strong connection to his hometown and has been actively working to improve it. His main focus is the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a charter school for underprivileged children that opened in 2001. Supported by the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which has raised over $23 million through donations and events, the school currently serves 250 students in grades three through seven. It plans to expand from kindergarten to twelfth grade, adding a new class each year, and already has a waiting list of more than 300 students.
Andre invests significant time and money into the school. He recently signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Estée Lauder to promote a new Aramis men’s fragrance, with Aramis becoming the foundation’s leading sponsor. “The school is a model for how I believe we can change education in this country,” Andre says. “Parents sign contracts committing to volunteer time and review homework. Students agree to behavioral and work ethic standards. Teachers must be available 24/7. And it doesn’t cost these kids a dime to attend.”
Jaden, soaking wet and completely naked, dashes past. “Hey, Rudey,” his father calls out. (He explains that “Rudey” is Australian slang for “rude.”) Steffi says something to him in German as he runs back toward the waterfall.
When Andre travels—which was about 80% of last year—Steffi and the kids go with him. (For the U.S. Open, the family stays in a rented house in Westchester.) “We haven’t spent a single night apart from the kids,” Andre says. “One of us is always with them. The only reason I can still compete at this level is because of Stef’s support and commitment. If I had to choose between being on the road or with my family, I couldn’t leave them week after week. It would come down to an ultimatum. But thanks to Stef, I don’t have to make that choice right now.”
Andre would like more children—six or seven would be ideal. Steffi, however, says, “Well, I’m turning 35. Two is great for now. I can’t imagine having another.”
Having been the world’s top female player for years, Steffi understands the physical and mental demands of the sport. “People might think we talk about tennis all the time,” Andre says, “but it’s the opposite. It’s about the unspoken understanding. I can go through a day thinking, wow, she just knew exactly what I needed to hear—or not hear. It’s more about what isn’t said than what is.”
These days, when they play tennis together, it’s just for fun. There were reports last year that Steffi promised to play mixed doubles with Andre at the French Open if he won the Australian Open. He did win, but her pregnancy with Jaz made that impossible. He still hopes they can team up someday. “I can’t imagine sharing the court with a greater tennis player, let alone someone I can kiss when the match is over.”
The sun has set, and the air has turned cool. Andre lights the gas jet.The fire. He’s clearly a happy man, living a full and content life—so why not settle down and enjoy it? What keeps him competing at an age when his great rival Pete Sampras and nearly all their peers have retired? Andre doesn’t have a clear answer, but he says, “The good news is, when it’s time to stop fighting, I’ll be ready. I imagine taking things very slowly. Also, visiting cities around the world we’ve been to but never really experienced.”
I asked John McEnroe, who mentored Andre as a young player and later coached him on the Davis Cup team, what he thought drove Andre to keep playing. “It’s hard to walk away when you’re still performing well. You get addicted. To me, he’s like a better version of Jimmy Connors—a bit stronger, more powerful, and with a slightly better return.” McEnroe says no one was as competitive as Connors, who played until he was 40 but didn’t win any major titles in his later years. “Andre still has hunger,” McEnroe adds. “I still have hunger, and I haven’t played a big tournament in twelve years. So Andre will always have that drive.”
But can anything in life ever match the thrill of being the best tennis player in the world? “Do you want me to take that one?” Andre asks Steffi.
“It’s an easy one,” she replies.
“Go ahead, please.”
“Very few people can say they’ve been the best in the world at anything,” Steffi says. “I feel like that’s something you carry with you for the rest of your life.”
“Adding to what Steffi said, for me this has been a journey of challenging myself,” Andre explains. “Being number one makes it about pushing yourself to be better than you were the day before and finding joy in that. I believe you can take that mindset and apply it to so many other parts of life.”
Cooking, for instance. Andre and Steffi took a lesson recently from Michael Mina, a renowned chef Andre has supported in several high-end restaurants. Andre, who focuses on a protein-rich diet, is on a personal mission to perfect the art of cooking steak. (When traveling, he even brings a charcoal burner.) “Here’s my approach,” he says. “If I serve a steak to anyone—anyone at all—and they don’t say it’s the best they’ve ever had, I’ll feel like I’ve failed. That’s the standard I hold myself to.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions About From the Archives The Early Years of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf
1 Who are Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf are two of the greatest tennis players in history both known for their incredible careers and later becoming a power couple in the sports world
2 What is From the Archives The Early Years about
This feature explores the beginnings of their tennis careers highlighting key moments challenges and achievements before they became global superstars
3 When did Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf start playing tennis professionally
Agassi turned professional in 1986 and Graf turned professional in 1982
4 What were some of their early career highlights
Agassi won his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 1992 while Graf won her first Grand Slam at the French Open in 1987 and achieved the Golden Slam in 1988 by winning all four majors and Olympic gold
5 Did Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf know each other during their early years
They were aware of each other as competitors but did not have a personal relationship until much later in their careers
6 What made their playing styles unique early on
Agassi was known for his powerful baseline play and flamboyant personality while Graf was famous for her fierce forehand and athleticism often called Frulein Forehand
7 Were there any major challenges they faced in their early careers
Both faced intense pressure and media scrutiny Agassi struggled with consistency and public image early on while Graf dealt with high expectations after rapid success
8 How did their early successes shape their later careers
Their early wins built a foundation of confidence and experience helping them become multiple Grand Slam champions and icons in tennis history
9 Are there any rare or lesserknown facts about their early years covered in the archives
Yes the archives might include details about their junior careers early tournaments and personal anecdotes that arent widely publicized
10 Where can I watch or read more about their early years
Look for documentaries biographies official tennis archives or sports museums that feature retrospectives on their careers