Seles, Monica
Tennis
b. Dec. 2, 1973, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia
Seles received her early tennis instruction from her father, who taught her the unorthodox two-handed approach on both the forehand and backhand. As a young teen-ager, she was sent to the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida.
Because she was such an aggressive player, unable to take it easy for any period of time, the other girl students refused to practice with Seles, so she was matched against boys, among them Jim Courier and Andre Agassi.
In 1987, Seles became a professional. She won her first major title, the French Open singles, in 1990 and the following year she supplanted Steffi Graf as the best woman player in the world. Seles won seven of the next nine grand slam singles championships, the Australian Open from 1991 through 1993, the French Open and U. S. Open in 1991 and 1992.
On April 30, 1993, Seles was sitting on a bench during a change-over at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, when a "fan" stabbed her in the back with a nine-inch knife. The attacker, Günter Parche, later told police that he wanted to disable Seles so Graf could regain the world's top ranking.
The injury was at first expected to keep Seles out of action for only four weeks, but she didn't play again that year and there was speculation that the psychological damage might have been greater than the physical damage.
Also troubled by the fact that her father was undergoing treatment for stomach cancer, Seles didn't play again competitively until August of 1995, at the Canadian Open in Toronto. To the astonishment of fans and the media, she won that tournament without losing a set. Then she reached the finals of the U. S. Open, where she lost a three-set final to Steffi Graf.
Seles won the Australian Open for the fourth time in 1996. It was her seventh and final victory in a Grand Slam event.
A series of injuries hampered Seles on and off over the next several years. Although not at her best for any lengthy period of time, she won 15 titles from 1997 through 2002. In the second round of the Australian Open in February of 2003, Seles injured an ankle and lost her match. She had never before lost before the quarter-final round in Australia.
Later that year, an injury to her left foot forced her to miss several tournaments. She came back briefly but reinjured the foot and left the tour after losing in the first round of the French Open. Seles then missed the entire 2004 season. She played a couple of exhibition matches with Martina Navratilova in February of 2005 and said that she hoped to return to the tour in 2006, but has not yet done so.
Seles has won 53 singles championships, which ranks ninth in the Open Era (since 1968) and $14,891,762 in prize money, eight highest all-time. Her overall tour record in singles is 595 wins and 122 losses.