Andre Agassi has revealed the secret to his 23-year marriage with Steffi Graf in a very rare relationship confession.
Two years after his divorce from Brooke Shields, the American tennis player, 53, exchanged vows with the German sportswoman, 54, in 2001 and they welcomed their first child, a son called Jaden, later that year. They expanded their family in 2003 with the birth of their daughter Jaz.
Fast forward two decades and the couple still share rare tributes to one another in interviews and on social media. This week was no exception, with Andre telling WSJ. Magazine that their strong bond boils down to being happy in yourself first.
"The first is to know yourself. You can't come to a relationship needing the other to feel complete, or else you're fighting multiple battles," he explained.
Not only do they have a shared interest in tennis, with Andre winning eight Grand Slam titles while his wife has won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, but they have also both taken up pickleball, where they plan to compete against John McEnroe and Maria Sharapova in the Pickleball Slam 2.
When they're not playing sports, the couple likes to spend time with their children. Putting all their tennis trophies aside, doting dad Andre admitted that one very sentimental present from his son is his prized possession.
"I have a necklace my son made for me. It’s a beaded necklace with these letters. When he was four, he asked me to help him. [He said,] 'I want to make this, I want to write, Daddy Rocks.' We put these little beads of the letters and spelled out 'Daddy Rocks.' I’ve never taken it off but it broke and it’s getting [fixed]," he said.
Andre and Steffi met after their respective victories at Wimbledon 1992, and he admitted he already had a crush on her in his auto-biography Open.
After seeing her doing an interview on French television, he wrote: "I was thunderstruck, dazzled by her understated grace, her effortless beauty ... I tried to get a message to her after [1991's] French Open, but she didn't respond."
They went on to date different people - Steffi was in a relationship with Michael Bartels from 1992 to 1999, while Agassi's relationship with Brooke began in 1993 - before romance blossomed several years later.
Andre and Steffi have remained notoriously private about their relationship and their family over the years, only announcing their wedding by releasing a statement that read: "We are so blessed to be married and starting this chapter of our lives. The privacy and intimacy of our ceremony was beautiful and reflective of all we value."
It's reported that the couple got married in the courtyard of their home wearing casual jeans with their mothers as witnesses.
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