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Your support makes all the difference.Steffi Graf's father and adviser, Peter Graf, goes on trial for tax evasion in the south-west German town of Mannheim today, facing a possible 10-year prison sentence if convicted.
Peter Graf, 58, and the family tax adviser, Joachim Eckardt, have been charged with evading taxes of DM19m (pounds 8.17m) - just under half Steffi Graf's earnings between 1989 and 1993.
The world No 1 is herself still under investigation and has been questioned several times. Eckardt's lawyer said on Tuesday that he would call her as a defence witness.
The case seems not to have disturbed her too much - she has won three Grand Slam titles in the 13 months since her father was taken into custody.
However, she has often been reduced to tears by intense media pressure in the last year. Last week she said she thought about skipping the defence of her US Open title in New York because of the trial.
Taken into custody last August because prosecutors feared he would flee the country or distort evidence, Peter Graf is said to be in poor health and he faces a charge sheet running to 237 pages.
Exacerbating the humiliation for him has been a deluge of media reports detailing his alleged weaknesses for alcohol, pills and women.
Steffi, whom her father began coaching when she was just four, says she made her father responsible for her financial affairs from the start of her career and took little interest in her own income.
Prosecutors say they have no reason to detain her and also have no plans to call her as a witness for the trial, expected to be spread over 30 court dates through the end of this year.
Attorneys for Eckardt, who has been in jail since last September criticise the prosecution for its decision not to put her in the stand, and say a fair trial is inconceivable without her testimony.
Ironically, Graf is one of the few top-earning German sports stars not to have fled abroad from Germany's high taxes. She and her father could have been spared the humiliation had they followed Boris Becker or Michael Schumacher to Monaco or Switzerland.
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