Monica Seles is the former Yugoslav world no. 1 professional tennis player and a member
of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She was born and raised in Novi Sad, SR Serbia,
SFR Yugoslavia. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994 and also received Hungarian
citizenship in June 2007. She won nine Grand Slam singles titles, winning eight of them
while a citizen of Yugoslavia and one while a citizen of the United States.
In 1990, Seles became the youngest-ever French Open champion, at the age of 16. She went
on to win eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday and was the year-end
World No. 1 in 1991 and 1992. However, on April 30, 1993 she was the victim of an on-court
attack, when a man stabbed her in the back with a 9-inch-long knife. Seles did not return
to tennis for over two years. Though she enjoyed some success after rejoining the tour in 1995,
including a fourth Australian Open success in 1996, she was unable to consistently reproduce
her best form. She played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open, but did not
officially retire until February 2008. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30
Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time.
Early life Seles was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, current-day
Serbia, into an ethnic Hungarian family. Her parents' names are Ester and Karolj and she
has an older brother, Zoltán. She began playing tennis at age five, coached by her father.
Karolj Seles, a professional cartoonist employed for decades at the Dnevnik and Magyar Szo
newspapers, drew pictures for her, to make her tennis more fun. He is responsible for
developing her two-handed style for both the forehand and backhand. Later, her coach was
Jelena Genčić. In 1985, at the age 11, she won the Orange Bowl tournament in Miami, Florida,
catching the attention of tennis coach Nick Bollettieri. In 1986 the Seles family moved
from Yugoslavia to the United States, and Seles enrolled at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis
Academy, where she trained for two years. Seles played her first professional tournament
in 1988 at age 14. The following year she joined the professional tour full-time, winning
her first career title at Houston in May 1989, where she beat the soon-to-retire Chris Evert
in the final. A month later, Seles reached the semifinals of her first Grand Slam singles
tournament at the French Open, losing to then world no. 1 Steffi Graf, 3–6, 6–3, 3–6.
Seles finished her first year on the tour ranked world no. 6.
1990–92 Seles 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. In doing so, she became the youngest-ever French Open singles titlist
at the age of 16 years, 6 months. She also won the 1990 year-end Virginia Slims Championships,
defeating Gabriela Sabatini in five sets. She finished the year ranked world no. 2.
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. In March,
she replaced Graf as the world no. 1. She then successfully defended her French Open
title, beating the former youngest-ever winner, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, in the final. Unable
to play at Wimbledon, Seles took a six-week break, suffering from shin splints. 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. She also won the year-end Virginia Slims Championships, defeating Navratilova
in four sets. 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 the final at Wimbledon, but lost to Graf, 2–6, 1–6. Two opponents had strongly
complained about Seles's grunting, so she was obliged to not make noise in the final.
Breaking her timing and her breathing, she lost.
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, including a 55–1
win-loss record in Grand Slam tournaments. In the broader context of her first four years
on the circuit, Seles had a win-loss record of 231–25 and collected 30 titles.
1993 stabbing Seles was the top women's player heading into
1993, having won the French Open 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 to date was her third win in four Grand Slam finals against Graf.
On April 30 during a quarterfinal match with Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg in which Seles
was leading 6–4, 4–3, Günter Parche, an obsessed fan of 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 cm. She was quickly rushed
to a hospital. Although her physical injuries took only a few weeks to heal, she did not
return to competitive tennis for more than two years. Initially, there was speculation
that the attack may have been politically motivated because of Seles' Serbian roots.
She was known to have received death threats in relation to the ongoing conflict in her
native Yugoslavia. However, German authorities were quick to rule this out, describing her
attacker as confused and possibly mentally disturbed.
Parche was charged following the incident, but was not jailed because he was found to
be psychologically abnormal, and was instead sentenced to two years' probation and psychological
treatment. The incident prompted a significant increase in the level of security at tour
events. At the French Open, held less than a month after the attack, the trophy presentation
ceremony took place on the court, rather than in the stands amongst spectators, as it had
been done previously. At that year's Wimbledon, the players seats were positioned with their
backs to the umpire's chair, rather than the spectators, although some players, including
Graf, moved the chair back to its original position. 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". 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."
Gabriela Sabatini was the only player who abstained from voting against Seles having
her ranking preserved after the attack. All the other players voted that Seles should
lose her ranking. Young Elders, a band from Melbourne, Australia,
sent their song called "Fly Monica Fly" to Seles while she was recuperating from the
1993 stabbing incident. She later said that the song provided inspiration to her at that
time, and subsequently met the band following her victory at the Australian Open in 1996.
The stabbing incident is also the subject of Dan Bern's 1998 tribute to Seles, "Monica".
Additionally, Detroit dreampop band Majesty Crush paid tribute with "Seles" from the 1993
album Love-15. Comeback
Seles returned to the tour in August 1995 and won her first comeback tournament, the
Canadian Open, beating Amanda Coetzer in the final, 6–0, 6–1. The following month at
the US Open, Seles lost the final to Graf, 6–7, 6–0, 3–6, after failing to capitalize
on a set point in the first set. Seles initially thought her first serve on set point was a
clean ace down the centre and excitedly jogged to the chair for a brief moment, but the line
judge to her surprise had called it out, and the chair umpire deemed it too close to overrule.
Her lack of fitness after the long layoff began to show in the 3rd set, after overpowering
a tentative Graf, and holding her to only 1 winner in the 2nd set.
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 5-3
in the final set, and had 2 break points to lead 5-1. Seles came back from 2 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. Her difficulties were
compounded by having to cope with her father and long-term coach Károly being stricken
by cancer and eventually dying in 1998. Seles was the runner-up at the US Open to Graf again
in 1996. Her last Grand Slam final came at the French Open in 1998, a few weeks after
her father's death. She defeated world no. 3 Jana Novotná in three sets and world no.
1 Martina Hingis in straight sets, before losing to Arantxa 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. A highlight of her late career was
her first Olympic medal, a bronze in singles, at the 2000 Summer Olympics. She defeated
Jelena Dokic in the bronze medal match, after pushing eventual gold medalist Venus Williams
to a tough 3 setter in the semis, losing 6-3 in the final set. 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.
After becoming a U.S. citizen in 1994, Seles helped the U.S. team win the Fed Cup in 1996,
1999, and 2000. She also won a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
Hiatus
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.
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, 7–6,
2–6, 10–1. On September 14, Seles defeated Navratilova on an indoor court in New Orleans,
Louisiana, 6–2, 6–4. On September 16, she defeated Navratilova on clay in Bucharest,
Romania, 3–6, 6–3, 10–7. In December 2007, Seles said to 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. In January 2009, Seles was elected to the
International Tennis Hall of Fame. Career assessment
Seles was listed as the 13th greatest player of all time by Tennis magazine and was also
one of 15 women named by Australian Tennis magazine as the greatest champions of the
last 30 years. In 2012, Tennis Channel created a list of
the "100 Greatest Of All Time" tennis players. Seles was listed at #19.
Seles's career was affected by the stabbing incident; her trajectory was indicative of
continuing future greatness. During the height of her career, she won 8 of the 11 Grand Slam
singles tournaments she contested.
Until her loss to Martina Hingis at the 1999 Australian Open, Seles had a perfect record
at the event, which is the longest undefeated streak for this tournament. 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, 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. With eight Grand
Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday, Seles holds the record for most Grand Slam
singles titles won as a teenager. 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.
Seles was a popular player, winning the inaugural Sanex Hero of the Year award in 2002. This
award was voted by fans around the world. She was elected to the International Tennis
Hall of Fame in 2009. Autobiography
On April 21, 2009, Seles released her memoir Getting A Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self
which chronicles her bout with depression and food addiction after her stabbing, her
father's cancer diagnosis and eventual death, her journey back to the game and a life beyond
tennis. Personal life
Since 2009, Seles has been dating billionaire Tom Golisano. The two announced their engagement
on June 5, 2014. Entertainment
In 1996, Seles made a guest appearance in the TV sitcom The Nanny. She also appeared
in 2008 in the TV series Dancing with the Stars as one of the contestants.
Career statistics
Records These records were attained in Open Era of
tennis. Records in bold indicate peer-less achievements.
See also
List of female tennis players List of Grand Slam Women's Singles champions
References
External links Monica Seles at the Women's Tennis Association
Monica Seles at the International Tennis Federation Monica Seles at the Fed Cup
BBC Sport profile Monica Seles at the International Tennis Hall
of Fame Monica Seles at the Internet Movie Database