Steffi Graf

Tennis legend Steffi Graf said Sunday she is happy to have shunned the limelight to focus on her career as a mother, 12 years after retiring.

The 42-year-old quit in 1999 having won 22 Grand Slam titles during her career to be one of the most successful tennis players of all time.

She married former tennis star Andre Agassi in 2001 and the couple live in Las Vegas, in the USA, with their children Jaden Gil, nine, and Jaz Elle, eight.

Chris Evert calls Serena Williams the favorite to win the U.S. Open and also says the 13-time Grand Slam champion’s career can be placed alongside those of 22-time Grand Slam winner Steffi Graf and 18-time Grand Slam winner Martina Navratilova.

Venus Williams over Kimiko Date-Krumm in the second round, Tamira Paszek over Francesca Schiavone in the third round and Dominika Cibulkova over Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round are just a few of the thrilling matches that stand out from this Wimbledon fortnight.

If you've been watching the French Open 2011 at all, it's easy to see that tennis is an incredible sport. A mix of mental agility and physical coordination, skill and fitness, it's also a crazy-good workout. While there are a number of female tennis players who inspire us to new levels of fitness on and off the court, here are the top five we admire.

5 Female Tennis Stars We Admire

Sorana Cirstea, one of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's brightest hopes who recently turned 20, had some unique preparation for the summer season. How did the Romanian rising star get ready?

"I just came to Istanbul two days ago from Las Vegas. I was there for two weeks training with the adidas team. I was doing fitness training with Gil Reyes, the trainer of Andre Agassi, and also with Darren Cahill. Andre came by one day and I played with Steffi Graf for two days in a row. It was amazing.

There have been so many Wimbledon heartthrobs and honeys over the years, but American hunk Andre Agassi and Russian beauty Anna Kournikova have been voted the sexiest tennis players of all time.

To celebrate the 75th year of their association with Wimbledon, Robinsons asked 5,000 British fans who has caught the eye the most over the years.

The survey found that rough and rugged Agassi came out top with over a third of women (37 per cent), while Kournikova was a firm favourite and top choice with 32 per cent of men voting for the leggy blonde.

Nineteen players have held the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's No.1 ranking, but only six of them had done it for 100 weeks - until now. Serena Williams became the seventh player ever to hit triple digits at the top this week.

Roger Federer and former tennis greats Pete Sampras, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf will play in exhibition matches on Friday to raise money for victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Retired stars Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport are joining Justine Henin in a second match at a charity tennis exhibition to raise money for Haiti.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will team with retired stars Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in an already announced men's match during the "Hit for Haiti" benefit to be played on March 12 at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

The best: Steffi Graf

The standout player for me, the best of all time, is Graf. She had a very good serve and won so many cheap points setting up the forehand and she'd hit a killer given half the chance.

The key thing with her forehand was the movement - she could move so gracefully but so effortlessly around the court and was able to set up the forehand time after time. When they thought they had got her out of the point, so many players tried to play her backhand.