Speaker A
It was the second set and Monica Seles sat down for a break between games.
The video recounts the shocking stabbing of Monica Seles and her rise to tennis stardom with a unique two-handed technique.
Key Takeaways
- Monica Seles revolutionized tennis with her two-handed forehand and backhand technique.
- Her rise to stardom was marked by overcoming significant personal and cultural challenges.
- The stabbing incident was a pivotal and tragic moment in tennis history.
- Seles' rivalry with Steffi Graf defined an era in women's tennis.
- External pressures, including media criticism, impacted her playing style and career.
Summary
- Monica Seles was stabbed during a match by a man who claimed to act for her rival Steffi Graf.
- Seles grew up in Yugoslavia with limited tennis resources, training with improvised equipment.
- Her father coached her using creative methods, including hitting with two hands on both forehand and backhand.
- She became the top junior player in Yugoslavia by age eight and won the Junior Orange Bowl at 11.
- Monica moved to the US at 12 to train under Nick Bollettieri but faced loneliness and cultural challenges.
- Her family reunited in Florida when her father became her full-time coach.
- Seles quickly rose in professional tennis, defeating Steffi Graf at the 1990 French Open final at age 16.
- She became the youngest world number one in 1991 and won multiple Grand Slam titles including three consecutive French Opens.
- Her unique two-handed technique influenced tennis coaching worldwide.
- Despite her success, she faced criticism for her loud grunting, which affected her performance against Graf.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
She didn't see the man climbing down from the stands behind her.
Speaker A
The tennis broadcast cut away to the scoreboard as an ear-piercing scream rang out through the stadium.
Speaker A
When the cameras came back to Monica, she was clutching at her back and wincing in pain.
Speaker A
She stumbled away from the stands and her water hit the ground as she collapsed.
Speaker A
A hero in the crowd tackled the man seconds later, trying desperately to take the knife from his hand.
Speaker A
Monica Seles had been stabbed.
Speaker A
Security dragged the attacker out of the stands as Monica was put on a stretcher and rushed off to hospital.
Speaker A
But when the police later questioned the man about why he did it, his answer only created more questions.
Speaker A
The man admitted he had done it for Monica's biggest rival, Steffi Graf.
Speaker A
Monica Seles had spent her childhood watching Steffi on TV, she was the blonde German champion with the unstoppable golden forehand.
Speaker A
The world number one who seemed untouchable.
Speaker A
She used to be a hero to Monica, but now Steffi Graf had seemingly become the reason that Monica Seles was bleeding in the back of an ambulance.
Speaker A
Before the attack that changed everything, Monica Seles had already defied the odds, just getting to the top of the sport was a miracle in itself.
Speaker A
She was born in December 1973 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, a city where tennis barely existed, there were only four public clay courts in the entire area, and getting time on any of them was pretty much impossible.
Speaker A
So, the Seles family would improvise, they strung a net between two parked cars in their apartment complex parking lot, and that was where Monica trained.
Speaker A
Her father, Karoly, was a professional cartoonist at the local newspaper, he had no formal coaching background.
Speaker A
But he knew how to keep his kids engaged.
Speaker A
He would draw Jerry from the cartoon Tom and Jerry on tennis balls.
Speaker A
And told six-year-old Monica to imagine herself as Tom chasing Jerry across the court.
Speaker A
It was his way of making training feel more like play.
Speaker A
But even though he could keep her engaged, there was still a problem.
Speaker A
The adult rackets were too heavy for Monica's small frame.
Speaker A
So, Karoly got creative with that too.
Speaker A
He taught her to hit with two hands on both sides, forehand and backhand.
Speaker A
In the professional game, a two-handed forehand was virtually unheard of.
Speaker A
Players would use two hands on the backhand for stability, but the forehand had always typically been a one-handed shot.
Speaker A
That's simply how the game was played.
Speaker A
But with two hands on both sides, Monica generated power that was totally unexpected at that age.
Speaker A
And using this technique, by age eight, she was the number one junior player in Yugoslavia.
Speaker A
At 11 years old, she won the prestigious Junior Orange Bowl tournament in Miami, Florida.
Speaker A
And watching from the stands that day was Nick Bollettieri, the legendary American coach who ran a tennis academy in Bradenton, Florida.
Speaker A
Nick was absolutely blown away by Monica's ability and her unique technique, and he offered her a scholarship.
Speaker A
But unfortunately, even with the scholarship, Monica's parents couldn't afford to just pick up their entire lives and move to a different country at the drop of a hat.
Speaker A
So, for Monica to pursue her dreams, the family had to split up.
Speaker A
In early 1986, Monica and her older brother Zoltán moved to the United States.
Speaker A
At the time, Zoltán was 20 years old and Monica was only 12.
Speaker A
Their parents stayed behind in Yugoslavia.
Speaker A
Monica knew maybe 20 words in English.
Speaker A
And she was surrounded by kids whose families could afford to pay while she was essentially there on charity.
Speaker A
She ate alone in the cafeteria.
Speaker A
And cried herself to sleep most nights.
Speaker A
She was only allowed to call home once a month.
Speaker A
But every morning, she woke up and walked to the courts.
Speaker A
She hit thousands of balls, ran the drills.
Speaker A
And with a racket in her hand, no translation was needed.
Speaker A
Tennis was a language she deeply understood.
Speaker A
Nine months later, her parents finally arrived in Florida.
Speaker A
Karoly quit his job as a cartoonist and he took over as Monica's coach full-time.
Speaker A
The family was finally together again.
Speaker A
The nightmare of being alone in a foreign country was over.
Speaker A
And now, the real work could begin.
Speaker A
At 14, Monica played her first professional tournament and defeated the world number 31 in straight sets.
Speaker A
At 15, she turned professional.
Speaker A
And at 16, she walked onto the clay at the French Open and did something that no one that young had ever done before.
Speaker A
She beat the world number one, Steffi Graf.
Speaker A
In the final.
Speaker A
The same player Monica had watched on television back in Yugoslavia, studying her every move.
Speaker A
The best female tennis player in the world.
Speaker A
Monica dismantled her in straight sets.
Speaker A
And from that moment on, it had seemed like Monica was unstoppable.
Speaker A
In 1991, she became the youngest world number one in tennis history at that time.
Speaker A
She swept the Australian, French, and US Opens crushing Martina Navratilova in the US final.
Speaker A
Unfortunately, she had to sit out Wimbledon in that year due to an injury, but by the end of 1991, Monica Seles had already won three Grand Slams.
Speaker A
In 1992, she won the Australian Open.
Speaker A
Then she defended her French Open title beating Graf once again in another epic battle.
Speaker A
The third set alone was a marathon of 18 games, ending 10-8.
Speaker A
It was the third consecutive year Monica had won at Roland Garros, making her the first woman in the Open era to win three straight French Open titles.
Speaker A
Karoly watched on with a smile.
Speaker A
As his daughter demolished opponents with the two-handed technique that he'd helped her master.
Speaker A
Around him, spectators marveled at the power she was able to generate.
Speaker A
The angles, the precision.
Speaker A
No one had seen anything quite like it.
Speaker A
Coaches around the world started taking note and began teaching the two-handed technique to junior players.
Speaker A
The unconventional approach that Karoly invented in a parking lot, it started to prove itself as a legitimate weapon in modern tennis.
Speaker A
Karoly loved the attention and acknowledgement.
Speaker A
He bowed from the stands.
Speaker A
Blowing kisses to the crowd.
Speaker A
It was his way of reminding Monica to enjoy it, to smile, to stay silly.
Speaker A
And to never let the pressure take away the joy.
Speaker A
And that would turn out to be a very important lesson.
Speaker A
Because by that point, tennis commentators were starting to wonder if they were watching the greatest career in women's tennis history unfold in real time.
Speaker A
It seems like the only person who had any chance of threatening Monica's total dominance was Steffi Graf.
Speaker A
The now former world number one, who wasn't quite ready to surrender her throne just yet.
Speaker A
Steffi Graf had been the world number one since 1987.
Speaker A
She'd already won eight Grand Slam titles by the time Monica Seles burst onto the scene in 1990.
Speaker A
But she'd been forced to watch as the teenager from Yugoslavia dismantled everything she had built.
Speaker A
The way Monica played was different, she took the ball early, stepping inside the baseline.
Speaker A
And redirecting the pace with insane angles.
Speaker A
And with every shot came her signature grunt.
Speaker A
A loud two-tone shriek that started when she was seven.
Speaker A
It was a natural expression of the effort it took to swing a racket too heavy for her frame.
Speaker A
But unfortunately, that sound.
Speaker A
Made her a target.
Speaker A
At Wimbledon in 1992, British tabloids started shaming Monica.
Speaker A
With front page stories and mocking headlines.
Speaker A
They even used electronic gruntometers to measure the decibel level of her grunts.
Speaker A
And the players started to complain too.
Speaker A
In the semi-final, Martina Navratilova told the chair umpire that she couldn't hear the ball off Monica's racket over the sound of her grunts.
Speaker A
The pressure mounted.
Speaker A
And when Monica walked into center court to face Steffi Graf in the final, she caved.
Speaker A
She went silent.
Speaker A
She suppressed the grunt that had been part of her game since she was a child.
Speaker A
Monica had surrendered a part of herself.
Speaker A
And she paid for it.
Speaker A
Graf completely demolished her in the final within 58 minutes.
Speaker A
Monica would later say this moment was one of her biggest regrets.
Speaker A
She had abandoned her natural game to appease critics and it cost her Wimbledon, the one major title that she hadn't yet secured.
Speaker A
But at the US Open two months later, she didn't make that same mistake.
Speaker A
And she went on to dominate the tournament once again.
Speaker A
The grunt was back.
Speaker A
And so was her power.
Speaker A
By early 1993, at age 19, Monica Seles had now won eight Grand Slam titles.
Speaker A
She reached the final in 33 of 34 tournaments.
Speaker A
And won 22 of them.
Speaker A
In Grand Slams during that stretch, she lost only once.
Speaker A
But while most of the world admired Monica's rise, not everyone was celebrating.
Speaker A
Behind the scenes, jealousy and resentment was brewing.
Speaker A
And would eventually manifest into something much darker.
Speaker A
And it had all started when Steffi Graf lost her crown.
Speaker A
In a quiet town in Eastern Germany, a man named Günter Parche was coming undone.
Speaker A
He was 38.
Speaker A
Living in his aunt's attic in Gorbach.
Speaker A
Stocky, balding, disheveled.
Speaker A
The kind of man no one really noticed.
Speaker A
But step into his room and you'd know exactly who he was.
Speaker A
The walls were plastered with photos of Steffi Graf.
Speaker A
Posters, magazine covers.
Speaker A
Newspaper clippings.
Speaker A
Her matches played on repeat.
Speaker A
He owned dozens of VHS tapes and he watched them obsessively.
Speaker A
He'd study the way she moved, the way she smiled.
Speaker A
The way she held the trophy above her head.
Speaker A
He wrote to her four or five times a year.
Speaker A
Anonymous letters filled with devotion.
Speaker A
Once he even sent $185 in cash and asked her to buy a necklace to wear during tournaments.
Speaker A
In his letters, he'd describe Steffi Graf as a dream whose eyes radiate like diamonds.
Speaker A
Whose hair shines like silk.
Speaker A
He said he would walk through fire for her.
Speaker A
But then, Monica Seles showed up.
Speaker A
And she stole the world number one ranking from his angel.
Speaker A
And something in Günter Parche broke.
Speaker A
Parche quit his job shortly after Steffi fell to number two.
Speaker A
He wandered Western Germany for months, unemployed and aimless, before finally retreating back to his aunt's attic.
Speaker A
Every Monica victory felt like a betrayal.
Speaker A
To him, every trophy she held should have been Steffi's.
Speaker A
Monica's success devastated him to the point where he sometimes lost the will to live.
Speaker A
But this deranged parasocial pain curdled into a different kind of obsession about Monica.
Speaker A
He began stalking Monica's schedule.
Speaker A
Tracking her matches, studying her habits.
Speaker A
Watching every tournament.
Speaker A
And he started to convince himself that if Monica disappeared, his beloved Steffi would rise again.
Speaker A
So, in April 1993, Parche traveled to Hamburg for the Citizen Cup.
Speaker A
And he brought with him a sharpened 9-inch boning knife.
Speaker A
It was a cool spring evening at the Rothenbaum Tennis Club in Hamburg.
Speaker A
6,000 spectators had filled the stadium for the Citizen Cup quarterfinal.
Speaker A
Monica Seles was leading Magdalena Maleeva, 6-4, 4-3.
Speaker A
Just one break away from closing out the match.
Speaker A
This was only her third match back after nearly two months away.
Speaker A
She'd been battling a severe viral illness since February.
Speaker A
Steffi Graf was breathing down her neck, close to reclaiming the number one ranking.
Speaker A
And in three weeks, the French Open would begin.
Speaker A
The tournament Monica owned.
Speaker A
Roland Garros, the place where she'd defeated Graf twice in those legendary finals.
Speaker A
Hamburg was supposed to be her comeback, her chance to rebuild match fitness.
Speaker A
To protect her ranking, to prove that she was still the dominant force in women's tennis.
Speaker A
However, as the changeover began.
Speaker A
Monica sat courtside.
Speaker A
She towered off.
Speaker A
Leaned forward to sip from her cup.
Speaker A
Her back was to the crowd.
Speaker A
The same crowd that Günter Parche was sitting in.
Speaker A
Watching.
Speaker A
And waiting.
Speaker A
The barrier behind Monica was barely waist high.
Speaker A
Security was minimal.
Speaker A
And that's when she felt it.
Speaker A
The sudden sharp pain right between her shoulder blades.
Speaker A
Monica's head whipped around as she saw Parche standing there gripping the 9-inch blade.
Speaker A
And before Monica could react, he raised the knife again.
Speaker A
A hero in the crowd acted quickly, putting Parche in a choke hold and taking him down while the other crowd members restrained him.
Speaker A
The limited security there leapt into action and they tore the weapon from Parche's hand.
Speaker A
Monica clutched her back as blood soaked her shirt.
Speaker A
And in the stands, there was chaos.
Speaker A
Günter Parche didn't even try to escape.
Speaker A
In his mind, he had completed his task.
Speaker A
Steffi Graf had never asked for help.
Speaker A
But in his twisted fantasy, he had just saved her.
Speaker A
Monica stood for a moment, dazed.
Speaker A
And then collapsed on the court.
Speaker A
And was rushed to hospital.
Speaker A
Within hours, Günter Parche confessed everything to the police.
Speaker A
His motive was hauntingly simple.
Speaker A
He wanted to hurt Monica Seles badly enough that she couldn't play tennis, so that Steffi Graf could reclaim the world number one ranking.
Speaker A
And to him, taking out Monica was the only way to make that happen.
Speaker A
However, as Monica arrived at the hospital, it was discovered that the knife had narrowly missed her spine and vital organs by millimeters.
Speaker A
Doctors stitched the wound.
Speaker A
Steffi Graf visited Monica in the hospital to show her support.
Speaker A
And Monica headed home in the weeks after.
Speaker A
The physical pain inflicted was lasting.
Speaker A
It would take months of rehab before she could even lift a racket again.
Speaker A
But the psychological trauma is what would really tear Monica apart.
Speaker A
And with the absolute farce that followed in the sentencing of her attacker, she'd soon discover that the worst was yet to come.
Speaker A
Six months after the attack, Parche stood trial in Hamburg.
Speaker A
Prosecutors sought a two-year, nine-month sentence for attempted murder.
Speaker A
The evidence was overwhelming.
Speaker A
He had stalked Monica all week, he'd purchased the knife, he'd struck her from behind and attempted to strike again before others intervened.
Speaker A
But when the judge handed down her verdict.
Speaker A
Parche received a two-year suspended sentence.
Speaker A
No prison time.
Speaker A
He walked free.
Speaker A
But why?
Speaker A
Well, a court-appointed psychiatrist testified that Parche has a highly abnormal personality.
Speaker A
The judge accepted this assessment.
Speaker A
She ruled that Parche's mental state meant he lacked the full intent required for attempted murder.
Speaker A
He'd already spent six months in detention awaiting trial.
Speaker A
That, the judge decided.
Speaker A
Was enough.
Speaker A
From her home in Florida, Monica released a statement that captured her confusion and fury.
Speaker A
She was understandably shocked and horrified.
Speaker A
The man who admitted to stalking her, who admitted to stabbing her once and attempting to do it again, was going back to his normal life.
Speaker A
Meanwhile, she was trapped in recovery from the vicious attack that could have killed her.
Speaker A
What kind of message did this send to the world?
Speaker A
Then, Martina Navratilova even spoke out.
Speaker A
The same woman who had complained to the chair umpire about Monica's grunt just a year earlier, the same tennis legend who had helped turn Wimbledon center court against Monica.
Speaker A
Now, she was furious.
Speaker A
On Monica's behalf.
Speaker A
Speaking from a tournament in Germany.
Speaker A
Navratilova told reporters.
Speaker A
That the country needed serious help.
Speaker A
With its laws.
Speaker A
Making the observation that when one human being can stab another with a clear intent to injure and potentially kill.
Speaker A
And yet they simply walk away.
Speaker A
Something is fundamentally broken in the system.
Speaker A
But she went even further.
Speaker A
If someone had attacked Steffi Graf to help Monica Seles win, she said, they would have thrown away the key.
Speaker A
The implication was clear.
Speaker A
Navratilova felt like the weak sentencing was about nationality, whatever disputes they'd had on the court.
Speaker A
This transcended tennis entirely.
Speaker A
Monica filed a huge civil lawsuit against the German Tennis Federation.
Speaker A
It eventually grew to the point where she was seeking $15.7 million in damages.
Speaker A
She argued that they had failed to provide adequate security in Hamburg.
Speaker A
And that their negligence had nearly cost her her life.
Speaker A
But the judge would later dismiss the case in its entirety.
Speaker A
And what's more, as another slap in the face.
Speaker A
Monica was ordered to pay the court's legal costs.
Speaker A
Weeks after the stabbing, while Monica was recovering in Florida, the World Tennis Association, the WTA, met in Rome.
Speaker A
And they faced a brutal question.
Speaker A
Should Monica Seles's world number one ranking be frozen while she recovered from a near-fatal attack?
Speaker A
Or should her absence simply be treated like an injury?
Speaker A
17 of the top players voted.
Speaker A
16 said no.
Speaker A
Only Gabriela Sabatini abstained.
Speaker A
And just like that.
Speaker A
Monica was stripped of her ranking.
Speaker A
It sent a message she couldn't ignore.
Speaker A
That the sport she'd given everything to, the sport she'd helped transform, wasn't willing to protect her.
Speaker A
Just five weeks after the attack, before Monica had even fully recovered physically, Steffi Graf reclaimed the world number one spot.
Speaker A
It appeared Günter Parche's plan had worked.
Speaker A
Just as he had intended.
Speaker A
For the first few months after Hamburg, Monica tried to pretend it had never happened.
Speaker A
She threw herself into rehabilitation.
Speaker A
And making plans to return at the US Open just four months later.
Speaker A
To outsiders, she seemed to be coping.
Speaker A
But then came Christmas 1993.
Speaker A
For the first time since the attack, Monica had space to stop.
Speaker A
Space to think.
Speaker A
And the memories came flooding back.
Speaker A
The knife.
Speaker A
The pain.
Speaker A
The man's face.
Speaker A
All the fears she'd buried under hours of practice suddenly surfaced.
Speaker A
She described it as darkness everywhere.
Speaker A
A fog of despair that she couldn't escape.
Speaker A
Monica developed post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.
Speaker A
She had reoccurring nightmares about the attack and flashbacks to the moment the blade entered her back.
Speaker A
The thought of returning to a tennis court surrounded by thousands of anonymous faces in the stands terrified her.
Speaker A
She needed something to distract her.
Speaker A
Late at night, alone in her room.
Speaker A
Monica found that relief in food.
Speaker A
Potato chips, pretzels, cookies.
Speaker A
Whatever she could find.
Speaker A
The act of eating became a way to numb the emotional pain.
Speaker A
To silence the memories and to feel something other than terror.
Speaker A
For those few minutes, while she binged, she felt okay.
Speaker A
Ish.
Speaker A
But over the course of months, the emotional weight never fully lifted.
Speaker A
And the physical weight started to accumulate.
Speaker A
The press picked up on it quickly.
Speaker A
Deliberately choosing the worst photos to use on the front page.
Speaker A
And all the while, just a short time after the stabbing, Monica's father, Karoly, had been diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Speaker A
Monica's entire world was falling apart.
Speaker A
And she watched helplessly as her dad underwent surgery and chemotherapy.
Speaker A
The one person who had been by her side, helping her build everything she had was slowly fading.
Speaker A
And she was losing him at the exact moment that she needed him most.
Speaker A
But Monica wasn't quite ready for this to be the end of her story.
Speaker A
After how far she'd already come, she wasn't ready to give it all up just yet.
Speaker A
She began working with a sports psychologist to address her post-traumatic stress disorder.
Speaker A
PTSD.
Speaker A
She had reoccurring nightmares about the attack and flashbacks to the moment the blade entered her back.
Speaker A
The thought of returning to a tennis court surrounded by thousands of anonymous faces in the stands terrified her.
Speaker A
But she kept showing up.
Speaker A
Trying to reclaim a sense of safety.
Speaker A
The physical rebuilding was just as difficult.
Speaker A
In the months after the stabbing, Monica couldn't comb her hair without pain.
Speaker A
The wound between her shoulder blades had healed, but the muscle trauma left her upper back in agony with basic movement.
Speaker A
Physical therapists worked with her on simple mobility exercises, gentle stretching, and just walking to rebuild her sense of her body in space.
Speaker A
And by mid-1994, she was able to pick up a racket again.
Speaker A
Not to play.
Speaker A
Just to hold it.
Speaker A
To once again feel its weight in her hand.
Speaker A
She started by hitting against a wall with no opponent and no pressure.
Speaker A
Then gentle drills with a coach.
Speaker A
Short practice rallies, longer rallies, practice sets.
Speaker A
And through it all, her father, Karoly, never stopped showing up for her.
Speaker A
Even while undergoing intensive cancer treatment, he coached Monica over the phone during matches and tournaments.
Speaker A
It was quite the sight.
Speaker A
A 63-year-old man hooked to IV lines offering tactical guidance to a world-class tennis player from a hospital bed between sets.
Speaker A
But even though he was by her side in spirit.
Speaker A
Every match Monica played came with a cruel cost.
Speaker A
Every city she traveled to.
Speaker A
Meant more time away from him.
Speaker A
And every time she came home.
Speaker A
He was thinner and weaker.
Speaker A
Monica was racked with guilt, torn between the court and the hospital room.
Speaker A
Between chasing a comeback and missing her father's final months.
Speaker A
But Karoly wouldn't have had it any other way.
Speaker A
He had made tennis joyful for Monica when she was a child.
Speaker A
And now, even as he was dying, he was helping her reclaim it.
Speaker A
Monica Seles finally returned to professional tennis 27 months after the stabbing.
Speaker A
She started off with a small exhibition match.
Speaker A
Against none other than Martina Navratilova.
Speaker A
And then, at the US Open, as she stepped onto the court for her first Grand Slam match since the attack, the crowd erupted.
Speaker A
Thousands rose to their feet.
Speaker A
Fans held up signs, chanted her name.
Speaker A
Some even wept.
Speaker A
Security guards flanked the benches, metal detectors screened every fan.
Speaker A
It was like the sport was saying to Monica, we failed you once.
Speaker A
We're sorry.
Speaker A
We won't do it again.
Speaker A
In the stands, Karoly watched on with pride.
Speaker A
Monica tore through the draw.
Speaker A
Like she'd never left.
Speaker A
Match after match.
Speaker A
Vintage Seles.
Speaker A
And by the end of the tournament.
Speaker A
She was in the final.
Speaker A
Again, against none other than Steffi Graf.
Speaker A
They hadn't faced each other.
Speaker A
Since before Hamburg.
Speaker A
And now, in front of 23,000 people, the two best players in the world were finally back on the same court.
Speaker A
Monica came within points of winning the first set.
Speaker A
She destroyed Graf in the second.
Speaker A
Winning six games to zero.
Speaker A
But in the third set, Graf recovered.
Speaker A
Experience won out.
Speaker A
Monica's unbeaten comeback streak ended and Steffi Graf won the tournament.
Speaker A
After the match.
Speaker A
Steffi Graf approached the net and embraced Monica.
Speaker A
Monica had lost.
Speaker A
But she'd also proven that after everything she'd been through, she was still standing and she could still compete at the very highest level.
Speaker A
Four months after facing Graf at the US Open, Monica won the Australian Open.
Speaker A
A ninth Grand Slam.
Speaker A
She competed through her father's death in 1998 wearing his wedding ring on a chain around her neck.
Speaker A
As she reached the French Open final just weeks after his funeral.
Speaker A
Then she won her first Olympic medal.
Speaker A
Bronze at the Sydney Games in 2000.
Speaker A
But as the years went on.
Speaker A
The injuries mounted.
Speaker A
By 2003, a stress fracture forced her withdrawal at the Italian Open.
Speaker A
Two weeks later, she lost in the first round of the French Open.
Speaker A
The first and only time Monica Seles ever lost a first round match at a Grand Slam.
Speaker A
After that day, she never played professionally again.
Speaker A
And she never did secure the Wimbledon title.
Speaker A
And on February 14, 2008, Monica Seles officially retired at the age of 34.
Speaker A
Monica Seles never chased sympathy.
Speaker A
She didn't want her story to be about what was taken from her.
Speaker A
She wanted it to be about everything she reclaimed.
Speaker A
Her joy.
Speaker A
Her power.
Speaker A
And her voice.
Topics:Monica Selestennis historySteffi Graftwo-handed forehandGrand Slamtennis stabbingNick Bollettieriwomen's tennisFrench Opentennis rivalry
