Monika Seles – “Little Mo”
Monica Seles, former world No. 1 tennis player, won 9 Grand Slam tournaments during her career and became the youngest player to win the French Open in 1990.
She started playing tennis at the age of six, coached by her father, Karolj. Seles won her first tournament at the age of nine. When she needed it most, Đorđe Balašević provided her with a tennis court, significantly contributing to her development.
In 1985, at just 11 years old, she won the prestigious Orange Bowl tournament in Miami. Noticed by renowned tennis coach Nick Bollettieri, the Seles family moved from Yugoslavia to the United States in 1986, where Monica joined his tennis academy and trained for the next two years.
She began her professional tennis career in 1988 at the age of 14. The following year marked the start of her full professional career on the WTA tour when she won the Houston tournament in May 1989, defeating Chris Evert in the final. A month later, Seles reached the semifinals of the French Open, losing to the then top-ranked player, Steffi Graf. Monica finished her first season ranked No. 6 on the WTA list.
Her first Grand Slam victory was at the French Open in 1990, where she faced Steffi Graf in the final, becoming the youngest player to win at just 16 and a half years old. In 1991, Seles dominated women’s tennis. She began the season by winning the Australian Open in January, defeating Jana Novotna in the final. Two months later, on March 11, she became the No. 1 player on the WTA list. She successfully defended her French Open title, defeating the then youngest competitor Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the final.
After the French Open, she skipped Wimbledon, taking a six-week break due to a calf strain. She returned to play at the US Open, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in the final, solidifying her position as the world’s top-ranked player. That same year, she won the Hopman Cup for Yugoslavia alongside Goran Prpic.
The following year, 1992, continued Seles’s dominance in women’s tennis. She successfully defended her Grand Slam titles in Australia, France, and the United States. She reached the Wimbledon final but couldn’t break Steffi Graf’s dominance on grass courts, losing 6-2, 6-1. From January 1991 to February 1993, Seles won 22 tournaments and reached 33 finals out of 34 tournaments she played. In 1993, she started the year strong, winning the Australian Open for the third consecutive time by defeating Steffi Graf.
Her stellar career and rapid ascent were interrupted by an incident that shocked the tennis world. In 1993, during an incident in Hamburg, a 38-year-old spectator, an obsessive fan of Steffi Graf, stabbed Monica in the back between the shoulder blades. Physically, Monica recovered quickly, but the attack left psychological consequences. She never regained the tennis dominance she had before the tragedy.
With a powerful forehand, backhand, and a strong return, many consider Monica Seles among the greatest female tennis players in the history of the sport.
