first of all: i m a big big graf-fan and followed her development since i read about a ten year old girl that was named the wunderkind and told a german newspaper: once i ll be number one in the world. i saw here playing when she defeated as 11 years old german opponents in their twenties. at least its a question of personal belief if shes the best of all time between lenglen, court, evert or navratilova. i think a lot of facts speak for that: that she was able to win on all surfaces. how often she won in a much shorter period - in comparison to navratilova or court for example. that she was able to beat all generations- also the so called young wildes. that she was the first and only person to win the grand slam on 4 different surfaces. and the golden slam. think of her willpower.and how much she devolped the game. when she appeared on the tour she didnt just defeat, she destroyed her opponents. i m rembering that she won the french open 1988 in a bit more than 30 minutes. nobody else came ever near to that.and dont forget: if evert or navratilova are asked about their best player of all time - their answer is always steffi graf. she was also elected to the female ball player of the century. so its no question that she is one of the greatest sport athletes - not only in tennis - of all time. martina navratilova said once that graf could have been also olympic champion in track and field. one of the biggest mistakes that people sometimes (in my opinion) do is when they try to compare actual players with players of other periods. of course the younger generation is always much closer to the long reigning champions as in their best periods. thats no wonder. cause they built their abilities on the actual standards. so its not so much spectacular that the williams-sisters were able to beat Graf from time to time. especially seeing the fact that graf was injured for two long years. and she just regained perhaps 80,90 % of what she was able to play. i cant remember many athletes in sports history that were able to be worlds top for nearly 12 (!) years. thats what makes the difference of historical athlete to other good ones. the william-sisters for example - perhaps we will call them once historical players. but till now: their careers are just too short to compare with suzanne lenglen, margaret court, chris evert, graf or navratilova. time will tell us. the discussion here is sometimes very emotional - at least its finally a bit a question of personal taste. me i appreciate the great navratilova. also margaret court. i think suzanne lenglen is on the same level too. some facts speaking a bit more for graf. sometimes people say that navratilova won more doubles and mixed. but dont forget that also graf won 8 double-titles (1 wimbledon at 1988) in the beginning of her career. later she put the focus completely on the single championships. however - all these players were breathtaking and will be remebered as the greatest all the time.