ENCHANTING EIGHTIES

GABRIELA SABATINI

ON COURT, the Argentine firecracker (above, top left) strutted around in a Rambo-style headband. Off it, she created a stir in 1988 when she posed in a bikini for Sports Illustrated.

Lucrative sponsorship deals followed, making Sabatini, once a runner-up at Wimbledon and now 46, one of the first tennis stars to make more money off the court than on it.

CARLING BASSETT

KNOWN as ‘Darling Carling’, Bassett, now 48 (above left), was famed for her big hair and off-court career as a fashion model signed to the prestigious Ford agency.

Raised by a wealthy Canadian family, she was a child actor and appeared in the hit TV series The Littlest Hobo shortly after turning professional at 16. Bassett’s career peaked two years later, when she reached No. 8 in the rankings. But she retired aged 21, shortly after marrying US pro Robert Seguso, and went on to have five children.

STEFFI GRAF

AT THE height of her powers in the late 1980s, Steffi (above right), now 47, was the subject of a minor diplomatic crisis after Italian magazine Oggi dubbed her ‘brutissima’ [very ugly]. Germans, who regarded her as a national sex symbol, fired off thousands of letters of complaint. She, meanwhile, boycotted the Italian Open.

A couple of years later, Graf had the last laugh, after being invited to appear in Vogue magazine. Her provocative photoshoot, in which her cleavage took centre stage, generated the headline: ‘Sexy Steffi.’ She is married to former US tennis star Andre Agassi.