Sbefore his death in 1990, tennis stylist, historian and author Ted Tinling, whose immersion in the women’s game began as Suzanne Lenglen’s personal referee in the 1920s and who knew all the greats from Helen Wills Moody to Steffi Graf, he offered an extraordinary prophecy.
“Monica Seles is the most electric event in tennis since Lenglen’s time,” he said. “Light up the pitch and it can hit the ball harder than anyone’s ever seen.”
Seles was 16 and still had to win a grand slam, but Tinling knew his tennis and with every double-punched and mischievous double-handed backhand killer the teenager quickly started to prove it.
Martina Navratilova was the first elated player to succumb to Seles’ power in the 1990 Italian Open final when she was beaten 6-1, 6-1. Navratilova compared the experience to being “run over by a truck”. And with good reason: Seles’ heavy metal tennis brand featured 37 winners and only six unforced errors.
A month later Seles became the youngest winner in the history of the French Open by beating Graf 7‑6, 6‑4. The German had won nine of the previous 10 grand slams behind a huge and legal service, while such was his lung capacity that scientists had once predicted that he could have been a 1500m European champion on the track.
Yet Seles refused to be intimidated. Her powerful returns dampened Graf’s serve, the quality of his thrusts blocked his opponent and his amazing mental strength – another of his many skills – allowed her to save four fixed points in the first draw before dismissing his illustrious opponent to win the game.
Winning soon became second nature. Incredibly, from 1991 to 1993, Seles won seven of the eight Grand Slam tournaments in which he played, recording a record 55-1 and even reaching the final of 33 tournaments out of 34. And then – in one of the most shocking moments of the sports history – the nineteen year old was stabbed in the back by an unbalanced Graf fan while playing in Hamburg.
She has never been the same player again. How could it be when he was away for more than two years? And when did going on the field seem to you to return to the crime scene? As Seles admitted to Observer Tim Adams in 2009: “I had grown up on a tennis court – it was where I felt safer, more secure – and that day everything was taken away from me. My innocence My rankings, all my entries, my confirmations – they have all been canceled. “
Seles’ biggest battles were no longer between the tram lines. Depression hit her hard and she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, his father – who as a child watched infinitely his balls to hit in a parking lot with a net threaded between two vehicles – had been diagnosed with cancer. In her poignant autobiography, Seles talks about how she started to binge on chocolate pretzels, chips, pop-tarts and ice cream, a problem that often led her to lose weight after returning to the tour in 1995.
She was still an excellent player, winning a grand slam final title in 1996 and an Olympic bronze medal in 2000, but she no longer reached the highest notes.
However, if the reels of the story had turned in a different direction, we could easily speak of Seles as the most successful player of all time. She was statistically the greatest teenager in history, having raced eight big slams barely a month after turning 19. To put that number into context, his closest rival, Graf, had won six when he was 20. Margaret Court had four, Chris Evert two. Serena and Venus Williams only had one of them, while Navratilova had yet to make his mark.
Who could have prevented Seles from driving at a similar pace for another six or seven years, at which point would have broken Court’s 24th record? Not the Williams sisters: however big they started winning slams only towards the end of the millennium. And while Graf would remain a serious threat in their six encounters between 1991 and 1993, Seles had the advantage, winning four.
It is also very likely that Seles resumed playing in his first 20 years. As his former coach Nick Bollettieri once said: “He won’t accept that he can’t do something and will spend 40, 50, 70 hours working just to get a shot. I said to her, “Your boyfriend is your prince dance machine,” he spent so much time with the thing … I find it very difficult to spot any weak points in his game. “
Perhaps volleying was an area that needed refinement and sharpening. When he beat Navratilova in a Wimbledon classic in 1992, for example, he only got one volleyball winner. It didn’t matter, as it successfully hit 48 passing shots. That year she reached the final at the SW19 despite the British tabloids persecuting her for the grunt. Peter Ustinov cruelly joked: “I’m sorry for Monica’s neighbors on the wedding night.” Imagine being a teenager and feeling it?
Seles ended his career in eighth place on the Grand Slam winners list. Navratilova believes that, without the terrible stabbing accident, “we would talk about Monica with the greatest titles. This boy has changed the course of tennis history, there is no doubt. “
It is difficult to argue. At its peak, Seles had dynamite on the ropes and ice in her veins – and she was arguably the original tennis warrior queen.
.
