In today’s weekend blog, I am writing about a female tennis player whose career was cut short by an unfortunate incident. I am talking about 1990s player MONICA SELES. She was born on 2nd December 1973 in Yugoslavia, and later in her life she migrated to the USA and took citizenship of that country. In 1990 she became the youngest French Open Champion at the age of 16 and had won seven more grand slam titles before turning 20. She became the number I ranked tennis player in 1991 and was the year-end No. 1 in 1991 and 1992.
By April 1993, she had won 3 Australian Open titles (1991,1993, 1993), 3 French Open titles ( 1990, 1991, 1992), and 2 US Open titles (1991, 1992), and reached the finals of Wimbledon in 1992. Other than the Grand Slam titles she had won year-ending tour finals in 1990, 1991, and 1992.
Some of the records she created/equaled before even turning 20:
- She is the only female tennis player who won both Australian Open and French Open for three years in a row between 1990-1993.
- She won the Australian Open in her first attempt in the year 1991.
- She shares the record of winning 3 consecutive Australian Open with Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong, Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis (post 1993)
- She is the only female tennis player to win 33 consecutive Australian Open matches between 1991 and 1999.
- She was the youngest ever French Open Champion (16 years old) in 1990.
- She shares the record of winning 100%(21-0 during 1991) match winning percentage in grand slam tournaments during one season, with Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, and Serena Williams.
- She reached the finals of all Grand Slams in a single year, 1992, this record she shares with Margaret court, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Steffi Graf. Martina Hingis and Justine Henin also equaled this record later.
Now coming to the incident that affected her career in big way:
On 30th April 1993, while playing a match, she was the victim of an on-court attack in the back with a 9-inch (23 cm) knife. The attacker was an obsessed fan of Monica Seles’ rival Steffi Graf. After this incident, Seles was shattered and did not return to the game for more than two years.
Following this incident, what happened in the ladies’ tennis at that time was not a fair justice for Monica Seles. At that time these questions were floating around in media and tennis circle:
- Should the organizers have stopped the tournament, seeing it was the worst thing on the court in tennis history?
- Were fellow players unfair in not deciding to freeze her No. 1 ranking position in respect and sympathy?
- Should the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) have involved players, asking them to vote to freeze her ranking position in the first place, being the body and authority of tour and global ranking?
- Did the German Court (the incident happened in Germany) to justice in this case?
- Looking at his initial statement to the police on why he stabbed Monica Seles, the precision with which he identified his target, slipped in from the crowd to court, brought out his knife, and knew when, how, and where to stab- before lawyers and doctors reports stepped in, do you believe Parche (the attacker) had a mental case or was it a calculated attack?
After the incident, Monica was stretchered off to hospital and that horrific incident changed the face of tennis.
- Meanwhile, following his arrest, Parche told the police he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone beating his idol Graf and that was why he stabbed Seles, who had overtaken the German Steffi Graf at the top of the rankings. He had hoped that by stabbing Seles, Graf would return to World No. 1.
- Parche was not jailed, with his doctors and the judges agreeing he had some mental issues.
- Seles was annoyed and sued the organizers, but was afraid of being attacked by Parche. Therefore, she refused to appear in Court in Germany.
- After the incident, Seles returned to tennis after two-and-a-half years and won the last of her 9 grand slams (Australian Open in 1996), but her career was never the same again.
- The WTA told all female players to vote if they would like to freeze her no. 1 ranking in respect. Only Gabriella Sabatini agreed, with others declining.
- Graf later returned to the top of the rankings, winning 6 grand slams in the absence of Seles.
Seles returned to tennis in late 1995, but she was unable to consistently produce her best tennis. She played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open but did not officially retire until Feb 2008. Several players and sports historians have stated that Seles had the potential to become the most accomplished female player of all time had she not been stabbed. If the stabbing incident had not happened, she could have played for at least 10 more years, because at the time of the stabbing, she was not even 20 years old. Imagine if she had played 10 more years, how many WTA titles and Grand Slams she could have won? My guess is she could have won a minimum of 15 to 20 more Grand Slams, considering the age was on her side, sadly she won only one more Grand Slam after the stabbing incident.
Waiting for your views on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
24th November 2023.