Steffi Graf - The Big Year

Winning all four Grand Slam events in one year (which is also called winning the Grand Slam) is an amazing feat in tennis. The difficulty of winning the Grand Slam is legend. Graf achieved this feat in 1988, becoming only the third woman ever to complete the honor. She started her run with a victory over Evert in the Australian Open (6-1, 7-6), and then beat Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0 in the finals of the French Open. This was the first time that a player had completely shut out an opponent in a Grand Slam final. In fact, Graf lost only 20 games throughout the tournament, and, at its conclusion, actually apologized to the crowd for winning so easily.

The next tournament in Graf's Grand Slam tour was Wimbledon, where she looked to a showdown with Navratilova, who had won the previous eight Wimbledon championships. The grass at Wimbledon was Navratilova's preferred surface, and many people, in spite of Graf's amazing run, were expecting Navratilova to come out on top.

And indeed, it looked that way at first, as Graf lost the first set 7-5. But she persevered and ended up winning 12 of the last 13 games of the match, defeating Navratilova in the final two sets, 6-2, 6-1. It was almost anti-climactic later that season when she won her fourth Grand Slam victory in the U.S. Open, and then followed that phenomenal feat with a second gold medal only days later at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.