Monica Seles

After a slow start at the beginning of the season, Seles went on a 36-match winning streak and won 6 consecutive tournaments starting in Miami at the Lipton Player's Championships.[11] During that winning streak she also won the U.S. Hard Court Championships, the Eckerd Open,[12] the Italian Open,[13] and the Lufthansa Cup in Berlin, Germany (defeating Steffi Graf in the final in straight sets).[14] Seles then won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 1990 French Open. Facing world no. 1 Steffi Graf in the final, Seles saved four set points in a first-set tiebreaker, which she won 8–6, and went on to take the match in straight sets.[15] In doing so, she became the youngest-ever French Open singles Champion at the age of 16 years, 6 months.[16] Her winning streak was stopped by Zina Garrison at Wimbledon in the quarterfinals, where Seles had a match point before Garrison eventually won 9–7 in the third set.[17] Seles then won the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles title against Martina Navratilova[18] and then defeated Navratilova again in winning the Oakland California tournament, in straight sets.[19] She also won the 1990 year-end Virginia Slims Championships, defeating Gabriela Sabatini in five sets (in the first five-set women's match since the 1901 US National Championships), becoming the youngest to ever win the season-ending championships.[20] She finished the year ranked world number 2.[11]

1991 was the first of two years in which Seles dominated the women's tour. She started out by winning the Australian Open in January, beating Jana Novotná in the final.[21] In March, she replaced Graf as the world no. 1.[22] She then successfully defended her French Open title, beating the former youngest-ever winner, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, in the final.[23] Unable to play at Wimbledon, suffering from shin splints,[24] Seles took a six-week break. But she was back in time for the US Open, which she won by beating Martina Navratilova in the final, her third Grand Slam title of the year, to cement her position at the top of the world rankings.[25] She also won the year-end Virginia Slims Championships for the second consecutive time, defeating Navratilova in four sets.[26] At the end of season, Seles had won 10 out of the 16 tournaments she entered (reaching the final of every tournament that she entered that year).[26] She ended the year as the no. 1 ranked player in the world.

Seles at the 1992 Canadian Open in Montreal

1992 was an equally dominant year. Seles successfully defended her titles at the Australian Open, the French Open, and the US Open. She also reached her first-ever final at Wimbledon, but lost to Graf.[27] During Wimbledon, Seles encountered difficulty because of her habit of grunting or shrieking loudly when hitting shots. Her quarterfinal opponent Nathalie Tauziat was the first to complain to the chair umpire about it.[28] During the third set of her semi-final match against Martina Navratilova, Navratilova also complained to the chair umpire about the grunting after Seles went up a break at 4–2. Seles ended up losing the game and the break, but broke back and closed out the match.[29]

From January 1991 through February 1993, Seles won 22 titles and reached 33 finals out of the 34 tournaments she played. She compiled a 159–12 win–loss record (92.9% winning percentage), including a 55–1 win–loss record (98%) in Grand Slam tournaments. In the broader context of her first four years on the circuit (1989–1992), Seles had a win–loss record of 231–25 (90.2%) and collected 30 titles.[30] She once again ended the year as the #1 ranked player in the world.

Seles was the top-ranked women's player heading into 1993, having won the French Open for three consecutive years and both the US Open and Australian Open in consecutive years. In January 1993, Seles defeated Graf in the final of the Australian Open, which, at that time, was her third win in four Grand Slam finals against Graf.[31] She then won the Virginia Slims of Chicago over Martina Navratilova in three sets.[32] This was the last title that Seles won before the attack in Hamburg, Germany.

On April 30, 1993, during a quarterfinal match against Magdalena Maleeva at the Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany, a German man named Günter Parche, an obsessed fan of Seles's rival, German player Steffi Graf, ran from the middle of the crowd to the edge of the court during a break between games and stabbed Seles with a boning knife between her shoulder blades, to a depth of 1.5 in (3.8 cm).[33] She was quickly taken to a hospital. Her physical injuries took several weeks to heal, but she stayed away from competitive tennis for more than two years. Initially, there was speculation that the attack might have been politically motivated because Seles was from Yugoslavia. She was known to have received death threats in relation to the Yugoslav Wars. However, German authorities were quick to rule this out, describing her attacker as confused and possibly mentally disturbed.[2] According to police, Parche intended to severely injure Seles so that she would be unable to play tennis and Graf would become the world No. 1 player again.[30]

Parche was charged following the incident, but spent less than 6 months in pre-trial detention.[34] In his trial, he was found to be psychologically abnormal, and was sentenced to two years' probation and psychological treatment. The incident prompted a significant increase in the level of security at tennis tour events.[2] At that year's Wimbledon, the players' seats were positioned with their backs to the umpire's chair, rather than the spectators. Seles, however, disputed the effectiveness of these measures. She was quoted in 2011 as saying, "From the time I was stabbed, I think the security hasn't changed".[35] Seles vowed never to play tennis in Germany again, disenchanted by the German legal system. "What people seem to be forgetting is that this man stabbed me intentionally and he did not serve any sort of punishment for it ... I would not feel comfortable going back. I don't foresee that happening."[36] In a later article, Tennis.com reported that Parche was living in nursing homes due to additional health problems.[6] He died in a nursing home in August 2022 at the age of 68.[37]

Graf purportedly visited Seles while she was hospitalized.[38] Young Elders, a band from Melbourne, Australia, sent their song called "Fly Monica Fly" to Seles while she was recuperating from the stabbing incident. She later said that the song provided inspiration to her at that time, and subsequently met the band (who later changed their name to the Monicas) following her victory at the Australian Open in 1996.[39] The stabbing incident is the subject of Dan Bern's 1998 tribute to Seles, "Monica". Additionally, American band Majesty Crush paid tribute with "Seles" from the 1993 album Love-15.

The WTA suggested that Seles's No. 1 ranking be preserved due to her absence from the stabbing, but the ranking was ultimately not preserved.[40] A vote was held at a tournament in Rome in 1993, and 16 of the 17 top players who voted rejected the proposal – Graf did not participate in the tournament and was thus absent from voting. Of those who did vote, only Gabriela Sabatini, who abstained, did not reject the idea of freezing Seles's ranking until her return.[41] Seles did not play tennis for two years and suffered from depression as well as an eating disorder as a result of the attack.[30]

After becoming a U.S. citizen in 1994, Seles returned to the tour in August 1995. In the run-up to her comeback, then-WTA president Martina Navratilova proposed that Seles be reinstated alongside Steffi Graf as joint number one.[40] The WTA did so despite some opposition from players including Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Gigi Fernández, whose tournament placements would suffer greatly by suddenly being placed behind Seles.[40][42] Graf supported Seles' co-ranking, but not the additional proposal that Seles' co-ranking not be determined by the minimum participation of 12 tournaments a year required of everyone else. Graf felt that would give Seles an unfair advantage in the rankings.[40] Seles won her first comeback tournament, the Canadian Open, beating Amanda Coetzer in the final and setting a tournament record for the fewest games dropped by the champion throughout the tournament (14).

The following month at the US Open, Seles reached the final defeating world No.10 Anke Huber, No. 4 Jana Novotná, and No. 3 Conchita Martínez (all in straight sets), but lost to Graf in the final.

In January 1996, Seles won her fourth Australian Open, beating Anke Huber in the final. Her pivotal match was the semifinal vs rising American star Chanda Rubin who led her 5–2 in the final set, and had two break points to lead 5–1. Seles came back from two points from defeat to triumph and reach the final. This was to be Seles' last Grand Slam title, as she struggled to recapture her best form on a consistent basis. Seles was the runner-up at the US Open to Steffi Graf again in 1996. Seles' last Grand Slam final came at the French Open in 1998, just a few weeks after the death of her father and former coach, Karolj, from cancer. In the run to the final she had defeated world no. 3 Jana Novotná in three sets and world no. 1 Martina Hingis in straight sets, but lost to Sánchez Vicario in the three-set final.

While she did not reach another Grand Slam singles final, she did consistently reach the quarterfinal and semifinal stages in those tournaments and was a fixture in the WTA Tour's top 10. In 2002, her last full year on the tour, she finished the year ranked world no. 7, defeated Venus Williams, Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati, Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters, and Lindsay Davenport, and reached at least the quarterfinals at each Grand Slam tournament.

Seles competed at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, where she beat Sabatini in a third round match before losing to Jana Novotná in the quarterfinals. Four years later, at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Seles captured her first Olympic medal, a bronze in singles. She defeated Jelena Dokic in the bronze medal match, after pushing eventual gold medalist Venus Williams to a tough three setter in the semis, losing 6–3 in the final set.

Seles helped the U.S. team win the Fed Cup in 1996, 1999, and 2000.

Seles in the 2007 exhibition against Martina Navratilova in New Orleans, Louisiana

In the spring of 2003, Seles sustained a foot injury. She was forced to withdraw during the second set of a match against Nadia Petrova at the Italian Open. Then, a couple of weeks later and still injured, she lost in straight sets to the same player in the first round of the 2003 French Open. It was the only time she ever lost a first-round match at a Grand Slam. She never again played an official tour match.[43]

In February 2005, Seles played two exhibition matches in New Zealand against Navratilova. Despite losing both matches, she played competitively and announced that she could return to the game early in 2006; however, she did not do so. She played three exhibition matches against Navratilova in 2007. On April 5, she defeated Navratilova in Houston, Texas, on clay.[44] On September 14, Seles defeated Navratilova on an indoor court in New Orleans, Louisiana. On September 16, she beat her on clay in Bucharest.[45]

In December 2007, Seles told the press that Lindsay Davenport's successful return to the tour had inspired her to consider her own limited comeback to play Grand Slam tournaments and the major warm-up events for those tournaments. However, on February 14, 2008, Seles announced her official retirement from professional tennis.[46] In January 2009, Seles was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.[47]

Seles' outfit at the Tennis Hall of Fame Museum at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island

Seles is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.[48][49][50] In 2012, Tennis Channel created a list of the 100 greatest tennis players. Seles was listed at #19.

Seles won eight Grand Slam titles during her teenage years. However, her career was greatly affected by the stabbing incident. Some involved with the sport have declared that Seles could have become the most accomplished female player ever. In an article written 20 years after Seles was stabbed, Jonathan Scott of Tennis.com stated, "Would Monica Seles have been the greatest female tennis player ever? The world will never know."[6] In a 2013 interview, Martina Navratilova theorized that if Seles had not been stabbed, "We'd be talking about Monica with the most Grand Slam titles [ahead of] Margaret Court or Steffi Graf."[5] Mary Joe Fernandez declared that Seles would have at least doubled her Grand Slam championship tally, had she not been attacked.[5] Tim Adams of The Guardian stated that Seles would have become "the greatest female tennis player ever to pick up a racket."[4]

During the height of her career (the 1990 French Open through the 1993 Australian Open), she won eight of the 11 Grand Slam singles tournaments she contested. With eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday, Seles holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a teenager in the Open Era.

Until her loss to Martina Hingis at the 1999 Australian Open, Seles had a perfect record at the event (33–0), which is the longest undefeated streak for this tournament (although Margaret Court won 38 consecutive matches there from 1960 to 1968 after losing a match in 1959). It also marked her first defeat in Australia, having won the Sydney tournament in 1996.

Seles was the first female tennis player to win her first six Grand Slam singles finals: 1990 French Open, 1991 Australian Open, 1991 French Open, 1991 US Open, 1992 Australian Open, and 1992 French Open. Seles was also the first female player since Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling in 1937 to win the women's singles title three consecutive years at the French Open, a feat subsequently achieved by Justine Henin in 2005–7. (Also, Chris Evert won the title in four consecutive appearances in 1974, 1975, 1979, and 1980).

Shortly after her retirement, Sports Illustrated writer Jon Wertheim summed up her later career:

Yet, transformed from champion to tragedienne, Seles became far more popular than she was while winning all those titles. It became impossible to root against her. At first, out of sympathy. Then, because she revealed herself to be so thoroughly thoughtful, graceful, dignified. When she quietly announced her retirement last week at age 34, she exited as perhaps the most adored figure in the sport's history. As happy endings go, one could do worse.[51]

She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame on July 11, 2009. In 2011, Seles was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time.[3]

Note: A walkover does not count as a win. Seles had a walkover in the second round of the US Open of 1996.