Two tennis stars have come out on top of a new survey asking people about the leading role models in sports. Steffi Graf and Roger Federer were named as the top female and male sports role models respectively in a survey of 1,500 people run by Barclays – sponsors of the English Premier League.
Perhaps tennis has benefited from all the scandals rocking the sports arenas of football, baseball, and golf in the past months. Many highly regarded sports figures have toppled off the pedestals some have placed them upon, as one after another shows they are not only human, but sometimes surprisingly and disappointingly so. At any rate, tennis claims two role models on this list, a good commentary on the sport many of us enjoy to watch and play.
Graf is one of the legends in women’s tennis, winning 22 Grand Slam titles and coming in as runner-up 9 times spanning 13 years, second only to Margaret Court with 24 wins and five 2nd place finishes over a 14-year period.