Pavel Slozil calls, but Steffi Graf doesn't answer.
Despite winning three of this year's four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and the season-final WTA Tour Championships, Graf's life is currently in an emotional and physical tailspin that Slozil wishes he could help her straighten out.After all, Slozil's responsibility was to take care of Graf's emotional and physical bouts as her coach for five years until 1991.
But instead of feeling Graf's emotions or hearing her thoughts directly as he once did, Slozil has been reduced to reading and watching the news just like the rest of us.
"Contact is very minimized . . . I don't know. I think very good friends at least call each other, but we don't have such a relationship anymore. She's busy. There's other things going on in the world than to call me. It's difficult to reach her. I tried to reach her through the agency to try to help her or talk to her. But, that's probably normal," Slozil said.
Slozil, 39, reflected on his relationship with Graf upon a recent visit to the World Tennis Center as part of a German group of players visiting Naples.
But Graf is not far from his thoughts, and he continues to keep a close eye on her career both on and off the court.
Particularly troubling to him is the investigation Graf is going under for suspected tax evasion. Already her father, Peter Graf, has been in jail for months for those same suspicions. Slozil was shocked when he heard the news.
"All I can say is she is a nice girl, very quiet, very fair. She would never do something wrong. But somebody made a mistake. Somebody is responsible for those tax problems. I cannot say. I had nothing to do with the money at the time, and it's already been four years," Slozil said.
Slozil was intimate with the Graf family for some time and developed his own take on the family's patriarch, Peter.
"Everyone says he's a bad guy. But he's the one who made her. She was born a champion. He made her like tennis every day and train it. I credit him for what she is.
"At 16 to 16 1/2, I started coaching her, and tried to be around as much as possible. He slowed down and started to trust me. Our relationship was good. That's how we stayed together for five years."
There have been times when Steffi Graf and Slozil have run across each other at Wimbledon and occasionally in Germany, but Slozil describes the conversations as rather short and perfunctory.
But perhaps their strongest contact came at one of the most notorious incidents in tennis history when tennis star Monica Seles was stabbed by a deranged fan on April 30, 1993 in Hamburg, Germany.
Slozil who was then coaching Magdalena Maleeva, was among the spectators.
"I saw it. We spoke about it. It was terrible. Monica was on the ground for a while and she was screaming and yelling. It was a shock. I was nervous. I had to hide myself away for a while." Slozil said.
From the stabbing to the present time, Graf has dominated women's tennis, winning six of the last 10 Grand Slam tournaments. Graf lost her No. 1 position to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario at the beginning of 1995, but regained it after defeating Sanchez Vicario in the French Open.
Graf has since maintained her No. 1 ranking winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Open where she defeated Seles in the final after Seles' two-and-a-half year layoff.
Slozil, like the rest of women's tennis, is glad to see Seles back, but Slozil believes Graf needed her more than anyone.
"(Seles) was younger and more eager. She had the will to win," Slozil said of the time Seles dominated the game before the tragedy. "(Graf) had a lot of her success behind her, and she had won everything. Now she enjoys the challenge of Monica."
But before Seles' subsequent challenges, Graf took over women's tennis from Martina Navratilova and produced one of the greatest runs in sports history that is fondly dubbed the "Golden Grand Slam," where Graf won the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open all in 1988.
What made it sparkle even more was a shimmering Gold medal dangling around her neck at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
So why did they split if things were rolling along so smoothly? It was just time to let go and for Graf to get new ideas. Shortly after the split, Heinz Gunthardt became her coach and is still her coach today.
"Five years is a lot of years. I was with her 32 to 35 weeks a year. It's not easy. It's like a tennis marriage without the sex," Slozil said.
After Graf, Slozil coached Jennifer Capriati for five months at the beginning of 1992 and then switched to Maleeva, whom he coached until May 1994.
He has not coached anyone on the major pro circuit since. Slozil now lives in Austria with his wife and daughter and has opened his own tennis academy.
"I'm trying to give (Nick) Boliterri a little competition."
And competition was part of Slozil's life for a while as he played seven years on the tour and won two singles titles including the 1985 Austrian Open. His highest rank was 34th.
Slozil was better in doubles where he won 34 tournaments and several of them with Davis Cup teammate Thomas Smid. In fact, Slozil is a one-time Grand Slam champion himself winning the 1978 French Open mixes doubles crown with Renata Tomanova.
Slozil also helped Czechoslovakia win the 1980 Davis Cup with a team that included Ivan Lendl.
But Slozil will most likely be remembered for his years with Graf, whom many cite as perhaps the game's greatest player ever.
"It's a close call to say who is the best ever. She's won 18 slams titles. There's so many (great ones), but to me she's the best ever."