Sports in Germany Austria Switzerland - Tennis and other sports

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German Tennis Champs
In the not-so-distant past, Germany was a breeding ground for world tennis champions. There was a time when the “sport of kings” was dominated by Boris Becker, Steffi Graf, Anke Huber and Michael Stich, all from Germany.

Tennis, anyone? Fred Astaire was noted more for his acting and dancing, but his father was Austrian.
PHOTO: Maureen Salomon Collection

Since the glory days of German tennis in the 1980s and 1990s, with the record-breaking successes of those German tennis stars, the game has dropped in popularity. Germany once boasted several top tennis competitions a year, but after the Hamburg men’s tournament lost its Masters Series status in 2008 and the Berlin women’s event was dropped in 2007, Germany now has no major crowd draw for tennis.

Swiss tennis champ Roger Federer (1981- ) is now the leading player from the German-speaking world. He held the top ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) position for a record 237 consecutive weeks. As of March 2011, he was ranked number three in the world by the ATP.

Nowadays, former German women’s champ Steffi Graf is best known for being married to the former American tennis champ Andre Agassi and for her family life in Las Vegas. Martina Hingis (1980- ), although born in former Czechoslovakia, is now a retired Swiss professional tennis player who held the top spot in world tennis for a total of 209 weeks.

Former world tennis champion Boris Becker now makes headlines with his turbulent life of marriage and divorce. He continues to earn good money as a tennis commentator and as a spokesman for various products.

Other Sports

Formula One Racing: Schumi’s Back!
When he supposedly retired in 2006, he was the world’s highest paid sports figure. German Formula One (F1) race driver Michael Schumacher (b. 1969), or “Schumi” (SHOO-me), as he is affectionately known, was earning the top money in the world — about $80 million in 2004! Forget soccer, baseball, or basketball! Formula One racing is where the money is, and Schumacher was the most successful F1 driver of all time, with more victories and more championships than any other F1 racer. Germans (and Europeans in general) are big Formula One fans, especially when Schumi was leading the F1 pack.

With his return in 2010, Formula 1 fans hoped to see him hold or exceed his previous records in the sport. But instead, it became the first season since his debut in 1991 that ended with Schumacher failing to get a win, pole position, podium or fastest lap.

See “Schumi” links below.

Golf
German golf pro Martin Kaymer – briefly ranked number one in the Official World Golf Rankings (April 2011) – was born in Düsseldorf. Germany’s leading golf player turned professional in 2005 and is currently a member of the European Tour. In 2010 he won four tournaments, including the PGA Championship. In January 2011 Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship with an amazing eight-stroke lead. It was his third win in a row at Abu Dhabi. Kaymer maintains homes in Germany and Scottsdale, Arizona. More...

Another German golf pro was Bernhard Langer (1957- ), ranked number one in 1986. The two-time Masters champion had the peak of his golfing career in the 1980s and 1990s. Langer and his brother Erwin now host the Mercedes-Benz Championship.

The two German European Tour golf tournaments are the BMW International Open (Munich) and the Mercedes-Benz Championship (formerly the German Masters) in Pulheim near Cologne. The Deutsche Bank SAP Open was held until 2007, when it was dropped from the European Tour.

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