FULL VERSION 1990 - Seles vs Graf - French Open Roland Garros

The big question for us about Monica Seles in her younger years is WHY? WHY? It's so exciting to rediscover the powerful hitting style of Monica when she burst on the world tennis scene at age 15 and started beating the established champions of the time, Evert, Navratilova, and now Steffi Graf — at age 16, in this 1990 French Open match, her very first Grand Slam. And how saddening to compare with what happened later to her new ferocious style of play, and mournfully wonder WHY, WHY did she lose the astonishing precision of her game when she came back into play at age 21 in 1995? In all those later years there was no longer any serious compare with the solid, crisp, breath-taking tennis Monica Seles is exhibiting here. Sad but true, even to her most obsessed fans, Seles never resurrected her former self, even if she got lucky in winning the 1996 Australian Grand Slam. The name remained the same, but the looks, the intensity of the game frown, and the panache of near-invincibility had all too visibly eroded..
It was not just a matter of the new wave of younger competition arising in the 1990s, Kournikova, Hingis, Capriati, Davenport, Venus Williams, etc. At age 21, Monica was actually still very young too, but it was her game that had aged disproportionally. And it is no more a matter of just blaming either. If she was a victim, it was more of the limitations of her family background and childish education. Fresh off the plane from Novi Sad around December 1986 when barely 13, she long remained a young wide-eyed immigrant, going through existential and cultural confusion, and reluctant to fully enter the American melting pot. As Nick Bollettieri bitterly related in his book, nothing was ever in the norms when dealing with the Seles, the domineering, demanding, Hungarian-speaking, idiosyncratic father/coach and his beloved intractable daughter/student, who naively believed their weird methods of training had to be carefully kept hidden from the competition as precious secrets — as if Karolj Seles, a professional cartoonist, had just rediscovered the wheel. 
Five months for healing the light wound from the stabbing and rehab time would have been enough to enable Monica, still 19, to get back into competition in 1993, so judged her two expert surgeons in Vail. She would have missed only two Grand Slam tournaments, Roland-Garros and Wimbledon. She then could have benefited from further maturity and a little more education, perhaps reading some book, opening up her thinking. With plenty of time for possible improvement, hopefully working on her serve, net game, taking seriously the needs for building up athletic endurance and mobility for the long term, and preserving her delicate sense of rhythm. Dragging this short rehab period into an unthinkable 28 months of idling and drifting and moaning amounted to effectively withdrawing from the game, and killing any potential for growth. She ended up missing TEN Grand Slam tournaments, when she had just reached the sensational peak of her powers — truly an unbelievable, irrational reaction — whatever the twisted apologia the older Seles later presented to clarify her motivations and justify herself. And stifling the obsessive qualms about her self-made misery with the comfort of bingeing on cheap supermarket junk food from cellophane bags was next to demented. No tennis player has ever taken such an immensely protracted layoff and hoped to maintain form and stay sharp — when missing just a week of practice immediately affected the fine-tuning of her hitting, her mobility, and sense of strategic gamesmanship. And, to top it all, automatically gaining weight through sheer gluttony, not unlike geese getting methodically fattened for goose liver — transforming her elegant lanky figure into an overweight, at some point even obese, caricature, with a waist roll bulging under her jersey shirt — seemed for any athlete champion quasi suicidal. 
Those are the very points Nick Bollettieri, in a frank assessment of her situation, pleaded with Monica Seles when he urged her to cut short her retirement as being bad for her and bad for women’s tennis as well. He invited her to resume training by rejoining his Tennis Academy, start practicing again to recover her full game, and return as the champion she had been. A generous offer which possessive father and coach Karolj Seles must have rejected and she barely acknowledged. 
Still an adolescent floating in a private dream of princess in tennis Wonderland, Monica Seles never assumed the behavior and responsibilities of a true tennis champion, with obligations to her gift from the gods, to the tennis public, and to the game that had given her everything. Something was deeply warped in the 19-year old Monica's immature and cloistered mental outlook on life. Which the more adult Monica Seles, a slow, reluctant learner off the court, finally admitted — when, 16 years later, a little more knowledge and some wisdom had trickled in — to having been actually derailed, juvenile, insanity. The gods of tennis wept over this genuine tragedy, another casualty of youthful impetuous "hubris", and have been mourning ever since.

For all Seles fans: "would have bicycle chain"...

Amazing. Monica only needed 1 year of full time play to beat the Golden Slam winner in straight sets. Twice.

Monica is aways beat Graf

In 1991 , seles played 16 tournaments , made the finals in all of them with a 10-6 record ... in fact between the end of 1990 and the attack on 93 she played 36 tournaments and made the finals in 35 of them , winning 24 .... incredible

I think its time we all move on

So good!!

Now most players are grunting cheats

Monica Seles was and is the greatest ever tennis player in womens tennis

The French Open will never be the same again without Monica...
Such talent!!

Monika-girl who had to be stabbed in order to make Steffi goat. German state organized it. They were very blatant about it.

Amazing Monica seles. She's 16 yo & the only 1 player who broke steffi graff's dominamce

There is no comparison between the two when you examine the beginnings of their careers.
Graf’s first 6 years on tour (including amateur, 1981-86):
Titles overall: 8
GS entered: 13
GS finals: 0
GS titles: 0
Weeks no 1: 0
Seles’ first 6 years on tour (including amateur, 1988-93):
Titles overall: 32
GS entered: 14
GS finals: 9
GS titles: 8
Weeks no 1: 113
You Graf fans are absolutely psychotic in your ramblings.

Monica parents were the best!

Monica was so sweet and charming in that Collins interview, really still hurts me what happened to her only 3 years later

You gotta love that Monica Seles - so fiercely tenacious and determined to win, and
keeps coming at you like a steam engine. What desire !!! My favourite woman player
of all time.

I love the way American channels put stats and info related to the situations in matches

Monica's dad said she was lucky at the tie break. No, she wasn't.
She was 2/6 down at Steffi's serve.

My mother used to watch these matches when i was kid .

In 1993, exactly three years after this 1990 French Open tennis match, Monica Seles was stabbed in the back with a weapon known as a kitchen knife.

Evert seething with jealousy during the last game. Lmao! Monica’s father so gracious when Collins tries to put words in his mouth, too.

Seles was much better than Graf, Graf should thanks to Who had knife for her for her rest of life

It almost looks like commentators were not too happy with Monica's winning.

Chris was a complete b****

Few athletes have dominated their sport like Monica Seles dominated women’s tennis. During the height of her career, she was considered virtually unbeatable.
In 1990, at the age of only 16, Seles became the youngest ever champion of the French Open. In just a two-year period (from early 1991 to early 1993), Seles amassed a whopping 22 singles titles and made it to the final of 33 of the 34 tournaments she entered.
Even more impressive, she lost only a single match in a grand slam tournament, winning six of the seven majors in which she competed. By the age of only 19, Seles had collected eight Grand Slam titles and secured the world No. 1 ranking with an iron fist.
Then, along came Gunther Parche, Steffi's no 1 tennis fan.
The only player that could remotely compete with Seles was Steffi Graf. Prior to Seles’s reign, Graf was the undisputed world No. 1. In the years leading up to Seles’s arrival, Graf collected nine grand slam titles and achieved the unprecedented “Golden Slam” in 1988 by winning all four major titles and the gold medal at the Summer Olympics.
Graf had established a permanent residence at the top of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) rankings until Seles arrived. Seles’ stretch of dominance brought Graf’s supremacy to an end. As Pam Shriver said, “Seles was dominating Steffi Graf, who, prior to Seles, dominated everyone else.” Can you imagine the frustration Graf must have experienced after being heralded as a contender for the greatest tennis player of all time only to be stopped by a 16 year old? That’s how incredible Seles was.
Martina Navratilova once said that the Monica Seles' stabbing incident had not only shocked the tennis world, but it changed the course of tennis history as without the incident, Seles would have probably won more Grand Slam singles titles than Steffi Graf, who won 22, and even the all-time record-holder Margaret Court, who won 24 Major titles.

thing that stood out to me about this match, when I first saw it, and even now, present day?...the look of concern on Graf's face, from about the 3 game of the match, to the end. I was a young player at that time, and had been playing tennis since I was a even younger guy. And I didnt know that, often times, even the best of players have a "tell" or soft spot. And Graf's was something that wasnt easy to pick up on, because she didnt lose much. But against Seles, she could FEEL Monica's intensity and desire to win.

And even more than that, Steffi coiuld see that Monica didnt just want to win...she wanted to embarrass, Graf. And it was one of the very few times in all the times I saw Steffi play, that she looked extremely worried that she didnt have anything to really combat Monica with. The only other occasions where I saw Steffi look this worried?..a semifinal match against Venus Williams in '99..and a semifinal against Evert, that she actually won in 3 very tough sets. It was NOT THE NORM AT ALL, to see Steffi worried about a particular player.

Her first singles grand slam and barely just a year on the professional tour. No one to this day in the open era has won as much and as fast as Seles did, from the moment that they turned professional. Not to diminish Graf's accomplishments, but at the moment of the stabbing Graf was sitting at 11 singles grand slams after being on the tour since the early 80's, And Seles after just a few short years as a professional had already amassed 8 singles grand slams. Although we will never know what could have been now, one thing is for certain we were all robbed of a rivalry that could have been similar to Evert and Navratilova.

Monica Seles is the best. People don't give her the credit she deserves. A true champion who created wonders on court and was the best player of her era.

MONICA ! TOP in the world at...16 years old !

Wasn't Monika's dad diagnosed with cancer during her hiatus? It wasn't just the attack she was dealing with.

I have no idea why people think Chris did horrible commentary. I skipped around at random points and she complimented Monica's play just fine. She gave more attention to Graf for sure but she was far from a hater, plus Dick gave a good balance towards Monica. I love Monica too but it wasn't all that bad.

Beleza é muito relativo, cada um tem um gosto. O que pra você é bonito pra mim pode ser feio

She had 9 slams. I think she would have had several more in the 90s if it wasnt for the incident. She and Graff changed the power. The Williams sisters took serve and power even further.

its so sad what happen to Seles ..... she was Serena power before Serena

Not sure Graf beats her on any surface other than grass. If she didn't get stabbed, history is a LOT different. And I'm a Graf fan.

greatest player ever in my opinion.

He looked like he was ready to kiss Chris Evert. She was gorgeous who could name him lol

Power kills power
. Seles did so.

Monica wasn't a tennis player. She was a gladiator.

monica is pretty

Is that line drawn with chalk

The all was out

Ese año, Graff solo fue ganadora en Australia... Había vencido a Mary Joe Fernández por 6-2 y 6-4. En Wimbledon perdió en semis con Zina Garrison, y la última chance le quedaba en el US Open, en el cual cayó ante Gaby Sabatini por 6-2 y 7-6... no fue un buen año en los Slam para la alemana...

Graf wins her first slam in 87 and then Seles wins her first in 90 against Graf. When Chris retired in fall of 1989 who would foresee Graf being beaten in a slam final by another player other than Navratilova.