Inside the super-secret lives of tennis power couple Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf and their children in a Vegas enclave after they disappeared from pressure-cooker public life

Last Friday, Andre Agassi wished his wife Steffi Graf – who he largely refers to as Stefanie, unlike her legions of fans –a happy 24th wedding anniversary. But such is the nature of their love story, he might have wished that it was their 33rd.

The eight-time Grand Slam champion was first captivated by Graf when he caught a glimpse of her doing an interview on French television. She was at the height of her fame, having secured her legendary Golden Slam in 1988, while Agassi was battling to win his first major.

In 1992, Agassi would secure it on his least favorite surface, grass, at Wimbledon. The mammoth victory was tempered by disappointment, with the champions dance between him and Graf, and the opportunity for a first real meeting, cancelled.

Agassi would go on to marry, and later divorce, American actress Brooke Shields, while the 22-time Grand Slam champion was in a long-running relationship with racing driver Michael Bartels, but the pair would eventually connect just before Graf’s retirement in 1999, with Agassi suggesting a practice set up by his then-coach Brad Gilbert.

Their wedding was as low-key as their romance was unique, with just their mothers as witnesses, the couple barefoot and wearing jeans, and the background noise of landscape gardeners working their only soundtrack (although Agassi revealed he told them to turn off the leaf blowers for ‘I do’). Two days later, Graf would give birth to their son Jaden.

Graf had retired two years earlier, and Agassi went on to retire five years later in 2006. But since his final US Open swansong, the family have largely shunned the spotlight – and that of the tennis world in particular.

Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf have been married for over 24 years after forming tennis’s most starry power couple in the 1990s

The eight-time Grand Slam champion had a long-running crush on the WTA star and had hoped for a dance with her when they both won Wimbledon in 1992

Much of Agassi’s groundbreaking 2009 memoir Open is saturated with his loathing for the sport that he conquered as an eight-time Grand Slam champion, and part of his early love story with Graf involved the two players bonding over her complicated relationship with the sport too.

Unlike other retired players therefore, neither Graf nor Agassi hung up their racquets to immediately dive headfirst into coaching, punditry, or serving as a brand ambassador. Instead, the two tennis supernovas all but disappeared from view on the tour.

Until recently, that is. Agassi has been the first to blink, spotted first at the French Open on analysis duty for TNT Sports’ exclusive coverage, and then as the captain for Team World at this year’s Laver Cup. Graf too is increasingly involved in public life, and with just two and a half years to go until the 40th anniversary of her Golden Slam year, could yet be celebrated by the tennis spotlight.

Here, Daily Mail Sport looks at the decidedly private life that Graf and Agassi have chosen to live in the meantime.

Raising sporting – not tennis – prodigies

Both Agassi and Graf were pressure-cooker tennis children, with their early careers pushed in large parts by overbearing fathers. As a result, forging the next dynasty of Grand Slam winners was never on the cards for either of them.

As parents to Jaden Gil, 24, and Jaz Elle, 22, Agassi and Graf have done their best to ensure that any interest in the sport would come naturally. ‘We’ve never really introduced tennis so much into their lives,’ Graf previously shared. ‘They’ve chosen other things’.

For their eldest son, the sporting gene is present, but in a slightly less expected form, with Jaden a talented collegiate baseball player. After bouncing back from a challenging elbow surgery in 2019, and the disruption of Covid-19, the 24-year-old featured for University of Southern California’s Trojans while studying. Jaden was later drafted for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers in the MLB Draft League in 2024 after graduating.

This year also saw Jaden play for his country – Germany – in the World Baseball Classic Qualifiers.

After sharing a practice session before their first date, Graf and Agassi married two years later

The couple have done their best to keep Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle out of the spotlight in childhood

24-year-old Jaden has his parents’ sporting ability but has applied it to playing baseball

22-year-old Jaz accompanied her father to the US Open this year and watched him win an award for his philanthropy

‘Agassi is a very tennis last name, of course,’ Jaden told WKBN News in 2024, before adding: ‘I’m trying to make it a baseball one’.

He also shared that he had picked up a racquet more than once in his youth, but found the accuracy required in tennis a challenge.

‘It was hard for me to keep the ball in the lines,’ Jaden shared. ‘I just wanted to hit it as far as I could.’

Jaz has slightly more of a connection to tennis than her brother – although both of them have enjoyed accompanying their parents to the US Open on occasion – but as a fan. She is an avid supporter of USA players like Emma Navarro, and has taken to social media to share her excitement at watching the local college University of Nevada, Las Vegas men’s tennis team.

Graf and Agassi’s daughter is also confident taking a role alongside her parents, with Jaz appearing in support of her father when he was honored with the Serving Up Dreams Award at this year’s United States Tennis Association Foundation Gala ahead of the US Open.

As well as following tennis, Jaz is also a fitness trainer, as per her social media profiles, and a fan of pickleball and dance.

‘You won’t find a single one in our house – neither mine nor Andre’s,’ Graf shared in a 2021 interview with German magazine Gala. ‘We only have our children’s trophies. Jaden from baseball and Jaz from hip-hop dancing.’

Life in Las Vegas

Part of the reason why Jaden and Jaz have enjoyed relatively under-the-radar childhoods and early adulthoods is due in part to Graf and Agassi’s preferred home base. Agassi grew up in Las Vegas in a relatively modest middle-class with a tennis court that was hand-built by his father in a bid to turn one of his children into a prodigy, but rather than outrun his past, the former player has continued to maintain ties to Nevada.

Graf and Agassi raised their children in a mansion in Las Vegas’ Spanish Hills, but after listing the house for sale over four years ago, the family have since upgraded to an even larger pile in the exclusive enclave of Summerlin.

Agassi and Graf are based in the city where he grew up – Las Vegas – but in a celebrity enclave

Neighbors in the area include Celine Dion and Carlos Santana, but Nevada is a far cry from Hollywood and the glare of roving paparazzi.

‘People wonder why I live in Las Vegas, but it’s somewhere we can be very normal. Our life is about friends and family, my brother and his four children live there and so does my Mom,’ Graf told Daily Mail Sport in 2009.

‘I can go about my life without a problem. I never liked being famous – I always said that and I meant it.’

United by charitable purpose

Another reason for staying close to Vegas are Agassi’s deep roots to the local community, with the star founding the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation in 1994 during his playing career. With a focus on providing educational opportunities for underserved communities, in 2001 the foundation opened Agassi Prep, a charter school in West Las Vegas.

Agassi has raised over $180million through the foundation, now called the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education, and supported communities beyond those close to where he grew up. Agassi’s charitable activities have included helping to build schools in low-income areas, improving public schools, and investing in their communities.

The eight-time Grand Slam champion has also supported children in achieving their athletic goals, running a Boys & Girls Club that provides for 2,000 kids a year, and helped fund facilities and housing for abused or neglected children, and children with development differences.

Agassi was also one of the initial founders of Athletes for Hope, alongside Muhammad Ali and Tony Hawk, which helps connect athletes with global causes.

Graf is similarly invested in philanthropy, running her own Children for Tomorrow foundation, which promotes the development of children and young adults who have been the victims of war, persecution, or organised violence of any kind. The foundation also funds an outpatient center for refugees at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, where it is based.

‘While my career may have been in tennis, I believe my true calling is to help create quality academic opportunities for young people that I frankly didn’t have,’ Agassi said as he collected his award from USTA this August. ‘It’s a privilege to be able to make a difference and help give kids the chance to choose their own path.’

Riding the pickleball wave

Although neither Graf nor Agassi has been in any particular hurry to head back onto the tennis court, save for the odd charity appearance, there is one racquet sport that has seized the attention – personally and professionally – of both of them.

Pickleball can prove a touchy subject for many tennis players, with more eager to discuss its limitations than its virtues. But Agassi and Graf are both keen players, having discovered the pastime in recent years, and even more interested in growing the sport during its big investment boom.

The family have caught the pickleball bug with Graf and Agassi two major investors in the sport

Agassi and Graf have a history of savvy investing, having done so in ticket reseller Viagogo in 2007 – which is now worth $13billion following its 2021 merger with StubHub. In pickleball, they have done so by investing in DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating), which ranks players globally. Agassi is also a board member of the company, which was founded in 2021.

He also founded his own entertainment company, Agassi Sports Entertainment (ASE), which will aim to bring both pickleball and another fast-growing racquet sport, padel, to wider audiences, and invested in Ballers, a start-up which launches indoor sports and entertainment venues in the United States.

Together, Graf and Agassi are both brand ambassadors for pickleball paddle company Joola, creating their own line of products, and have also taken part in a slew of exhibitions, including the Pickleball Slam. Next year’s iteration, its fourth year, with feature Agassi in a Battle of the Sexes-style showdown live on ESPN alongside former world No 4 James Blake, taking on pickleball professionals Eugenie Bouchard and Anne Leigh Waters.

Andre’s tennis reunion

For decades after their retirements, the closest a 1990s or early 2000s tennis fan could get to their idols on the modern-day tour was watching them in the stands at the US Open – if that.

But stirrings that Agassi, at least, was ready to dip a toe back into the contemporary game have been in the air since last year’s tournament in Flushing Meadows, where Agassi presented Jannik Sinner – who is coached, like he was, by Darren Cahill – with the men’s singles trophy, and competed in exhibition contest Stars of the Open alongside John McEnroe.

Then, TNT Sports signed Agassi up for punditry duty for this year’s French Open, where he was a resounding hit as he covered matches in the build-up to the final – before the broadcaster made the ill-advised decision to leave him on the bench for the history-making showdown between Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.

British audiences had the opportunity for a second serving of his commentary as part of BBC’s Wimbledon coverage later this summer, with Agassi providing analysis during the semi-final clash between his compatriot Taylor Fritz and Alcaraz.

The couple have been lesser-spotted on the tennis court unless stepping up for an event to fund their charities (pictured in 2015)

But Agassi was back with a bang as he took over duties at Laver Cup from John McEnroe

Whether Agassi will tick off another Grand Slam in January when attention turns to Melbourne remains to be seen, but the star is also attempting to capture viewers’ attention with the development of another entertainment outlet: a dramatic series produced  by Amazon MGM Studios and Universal Television based around junior players attending elite tennis academies, called ‘Rally’.

Courtside, he is an even greater presence, taking over from McEnroe this year as the captain of Team World at the growing Laver Cup tournament. Overseeing a mostly American cohort in the team event, Agassi’s emotional stewardship and excitable demonstrations from the bench quickly went viral, and Team World swept Europe to victory, 15 points to nine.

A few years ago, it might have been a surprise to even Agassi that he could have such a good time in the vicinity of a professional tennis court. But for his fans, it will have felt long overdue.