Monica Seles

Seles was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), to an ethnic Hungarian family. Her parents are Ester and Karolj (Eszter and Károly in Hungarian) and she has an older brother, Zoltan (Zoltán in Hungarian). She began playing tennis at age five, coached by her father, a professional cartoonist employed for decades at the Dnevnik and Magyar Szó newspapers, who 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 age 11, she won the Junior Orange Bowl tournament in Miami, Florida, which caught the attention of tennis coach Nick Bollettieri. In early 1986, Seles and her brother Zoltan moved from Yugoslavia to the United States, and Seles enrolled at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she trained for two years and continued to practice until March 1990. Nine months after their arrival at the academy, Seles' mother and father joined her and Zoltan in Florida. Seles played her first professional tournament as an amateur in 1988 at age 14. The following year, she turned professional on February 13, 1989, and 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 Graf. Seles finished her first year on the tour ranked world No. 6. ==Tennis career==

1990–1992 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. During that winning streak she also won the U.S. Hard Court Championships, the Eckerd Open, the Italian Open, and the Lufthansa Cup in Berlin, Germany, defeating Steffi Graf in the final in straight sets. Seles then won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 1990 French Open. Facing world No. 1 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 Champion at the age of 16 years, 6 months. 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. Seles then won the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles title against Martina Navratilova and then defeated Navratilova again in winning the Oakland California tournament, in straight sets. 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. She finished the year ranked world number 2. 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, suffering from shin splints, 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. She also won the year-end Virginia Slims Championships for the second consecutive time, defeating Navratilova in four sets. 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). 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. 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. From January 1991 through February 1993, Seles won 22 titles and reached 33 finals in 34 tournaments. 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. She once again ended the year as the #1 ranked player in the world. 1993 stabbing attack 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. She then won the Virginia Slims of Chicago over Martina Navratilova in three sets. 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 (1954–2022), an obsessed fan of Seles's rival 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 . 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. 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. 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 security at tennis tour events. 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." In a later article, Tennis reported that Parche was living in nursing homes due to additional health problems. 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 inspired her at the time and that she subsequently met the band (later known as the Monicas) following her victory at the Australian Open in 1996. 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. Seles did not play tennis for two years and suffered from depression as well as an eating disorder as a result of the attack. 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. In February 2005, Seles played two exhibition matches in New Zealand against Navratilova. Despite losing both matches, she played competitively and announced she could return to the game early in 2006; however, she did not. She played three exhibition matches against Navratilova in 2007. On April 5, she defeated Navratilova in Houston, Texas, on clay. On September 14, Seles defeated Navratilova on an indoor court in New Orleans. On September 16, she beat her on clay in Bucharest. 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. In January 2009, Seles was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Assessment Museum at the Newport Casino Seles is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. 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." 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." Mary Joe Fernandez declared that Seles would have at least doubled her Grand Slam championship tally, had she not been attacked. Tim Adams of The Guardian stated that Seles would have become "the greatest female tennis player ever to pick up a racket." 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 stated: 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. ==Playing style==

Seles was a baseline player who was known for her power-based, highly aggressive playing style. Her unconventional double-handed forehand and backhand were both hit flat, with relentless speed, power, and depth. As a result of her two-handed groundstrokes, she could create sharp angles around the court, and hit winners at will. She was an aggressive return player and would stand within the baseline to return serves. Further strengths included her fitness, speed, and court coverage, allowing her to be an excellent retriever, and hit winners from any position on the court. Prior to her stabbing, Seles' greatest strengths were her powerful groundstrokes and mental toughness, with her being described as one of the toughest players to beat on the WTA tour. Seles was also known for accompanying her shots with loud grunting, and was frequently criticized for doing so. Due to her aggressive power game, she is considered one of the inspirations for modern WTA players such as Serena and Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, and Victoria Azarenka. In the book Facing Monica Seles, Chris Evert is quoted saying Seles "changed the whole complexion of tennis, brought another level to the game. She was a game changer." ==Coaches, equipment, and endorsements==

Seles had many coaches through the years. These included: Karoly Seleš (1979–1996), Jelena Genčić (1980–1986), Nick Bollettieri (1986–1990), Sven Groeneveld (1991–1992), Gavin Hopper (1997–1998), Bobby Banck (1999–2001), Mike Sell (2001–2002), and David Nainkin (2003). In the early 1990s, Seles signed a $4-million endorsement contract with Fila to promote its footwear and tennis apparel. She used a Prince original graphite racquet on court. In August of the 1990 season, Seles switched to a Yonex racquet. When she returned to the tour in 1995 after the stabbing, Seles wore apparel by Nike and used a Yonex racquet on court. In the 2000s, Seles wore Yonex apparel and used a Yonex SRQ Ti-800 Pro Long racquet on court. ==Personal life==

Seles was born and raised in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) to an ethnic Hungarian family. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1994, and she received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007. She received honorary citizenship of Novi Sad in 1993. 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 binge eating disorder (BED) after her stabbing, her father's cancer diagnosis and eventual death, her journey back to the game, and a life beyond tennis. Seles is married to businessman Tom Golisano, who is 32 years her senior. They began dating in 2009. The two announced their engagement on June 5, 2014. As of 2015, Seles was a paid spokesperson for Shire, the makers of the first drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat binge eating disorder, to raise awareness of the disorder she has suffered from since she was a young adult. Seles would eat normal amounts of food at meals, and then secretly eat large amounts of junk food when she was alone. Seles was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis in 2022, and she made public her battle with the disease in August 2025. ==In popular culture==

In 1993, Seinfeld featured an episode ("The Lip Reader") in which the creators fictionalized Seles's return to the US Open after her stabbing. In 1996, Seles made a guest appearance in the TV sitcom The Nanny. She also appeared on the TV series Dancing with the Stars in 2008 as one of the contestants. ==Career statistics==

Grand Slam singles finals: 13 finals (9 titles, 4 runner-ups) Singles performance timeline Note: A walkover does not count as a win. Seles had a walkover in the second round of the US Open of 1996. ==Records==

• These records were attained in Open Era of tennis. • Records in bold indicate peer-less achievements. ==See also==