Former tennis icon Monica Seles gained a reputation for her stroke-making. Additionally, Seles also gained a bit of infamy for her loud grunts while playing. As a player, she broke through the ranks to emerge as the world’s number one player. With her spot sealed in the Tennis Hall of Fame, we delve deeper into the life of this legend.
Monica was a formidable player, and her double-handed backhand and forehand were especially lethal. Seles used her grunts to her advantage as well, intimidating her opponents with her shots and her shrieks. Moreover, she was a hard hitter, something that even her rivals had to acknowledge.
Seles found success very early on in her career. She became the top-ranked player when she was only 18 years old. Moreover, she managed to hold on to the spot from 1991–1992.
Monica had won seven major titles out of the eight she had played, and she had not even turned 20. Naturally, fans still reminisce about her tennis superiority. A lot of fans may still be unaware of her past and her battle to be the best.
Monica Seles has Hungarian roots, despite her American nationality
The former world number one was born on December 2, 1973, in Újvidék, in erstwhile Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), to ethnic Hungarian parents. She has been a US citizen since 1994 and a Hungarian citizen since 2007.
Monica started playing tennis at a very young age. When she was five years old, her father, Károly Szeles, taught her to play tennis in a parking lot. Since Monica was smaller than girls her age, she had to play with her father’s regular-sized racket. It is the reason she developed her signature double-handed backhand, hitting them powerfully on both flanks.
Neither Monica’s mother, Eszter, nor her grandmother wanted her to play tennis. Monica, though, had other plans. She wanted to defeat her brother Zoltán, who was the number one junior player in the country. Her father backed up her pursuits, and her dedication to the sport started paying off.
Károly developed Monica’s talents at an alarming rate. At the age of 11, Monica won the Orange Bowl Tournament in Miami. This victory sealed her fate, as the Seles family moved to the US the next year.
The rise of Seles and the incident that changed her life
Monica climbed up the ranking ladder very quickly. By the time she was 16, she had had her first taste of success when she defeated Steffi Graf to win the French Open. She was the youngest person to lift the trophy in the history of the tournament.
Seles had the ability to become one of the greatest players to ever grace the tennis court. She was virtually unbeatable, and this led to her unfortunate downfall.
When Monica was just 19, a crazy Graf fan stabbed her in the back with a knife at a match in Germany. She had to be treated for PTSD and took a break from tennis for two years. Seles never quite got back to the level she used to play at. She eventually retired from the sport in 2008.
Monica Seles’ life is a cautionary tale. Her rapid rise and unfortunate fall from grace are still talked about to this day. While tournaments implemented more stringent security, the damage was already done.