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| | ESPN.com - TENNIS - Hello and goodbye: Remembering Steffi Graf |
 | | Which is why it's so fitting that Graf, now a worldly woman of 30, chose a press conference in the relatively obscure town of Heidelberg, Germany, not far from her childhood home of Bruhl, to announce that after 17 years as a professional, she was calling it quits, effective immediately. |
 | | Graf's earliest memories are of her father, Peter, tying a string between two chairs in her family's hobby room, handing his 4-year-old daughter a sawed-off racquet, and enticing her to hit a ball over the "net" enough times to merit a strawberry ice. |
 | | Graf's father has always been a focal point in her life, though in truth, his behavior was often a source of unwanted attention and stress. |
| espn.go.com /tennis/a/1099steffi.html (1687 words) |
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