"Once he met Steffi Graf, things changed a little bit": Darren Cahill explains impact of Steffi Graff on Andre Agassi's career

Former world number one Andre Agassi’s ex-coach has opened up about the positive impact his wife, Steffi Graf, had on his career. The two are regarded as one of the most powerful couples in the world of tennis, as both were former world number one.

Agassi finished his career with eight Grand Slam titles, whereas Graff finished with 22 major titles in her illustrious career. The two got married in 2001 and have two children. An ex-coach of Agassi, Cahill, has recently been quoted in a report where he spoke about the impact Graff had on the career of her husband’s carer. He stated that after marrying Graff, Agassi’s perspective about playing tennis changed immensely, and the credit for that goes to the former world number one.

"His [Agassi's] relationship with tennis is complicated, if you've read the book," said Cahill. "He never found the right balance. So the right balance for him is if you can get the joy from winning equals the pain from losing, and he always found pain from losing much harder than the highs from winning. So he didn't enjoy the winning moments nearly as much as he suffered through the losing moments. That's why he struggled a little bit with tennis. I think once he met Steffi Graf, things changed a little bit because he found some balance in life. He found an incredible person.

He continued by saying: “I don't know if you know Stef, but Stef is one of the most grounded, humble champions we've ever seen. Easiest person in the world to speak to. Funny as anything. And a family person, who does anything for her family, and anybody else's family too by the way. She's an amazing woman, and he met an incredible woman, and I think she grounded him and gave him purpose and along with that purpose, he started to raise a lot of money for underprivileged children, for education. So, I think he's opened 150 charter schools in America for kids who can't afford an education. He has an amazing charter school in Las Vegas. So he started to play for them, and he found purpose within his life.”