Monica Seles: The tennis ace
The former top ranked Serbian tennis sensation Monica Seles was born on December 2, 1973 in Yugoslavia. She became the citizen of United States of America back in 1994 and also got Hungarian citizenship back in June 2007. She succeeded in a total of nine Grand Slam singles championships, triumphing in eight of them being a Yugoslavian citizen while one as a citizen of America.
She triumphed in the French Open Tournament back in 1990 just at the age of sixteen years old. Monica was the top ranked tennis player in 1991 as well as 1992 however in 1993 she was pulled out of the sport for a period of over two years as a result of an on court attempt in which a German man from the crowd attacked her back with a knife. She experienced some victories after her come back in 1995, including a Grand Slam singles trophy at the Australian Open championship back in 1996, but failed to deliver on a consistent basis. Seles participated in her last professional tennis match at the French Open tournament back in 2003; however her official retirement declaration was not announced until February 2008.
Born in Yugoslavia, Monica started playing the game of tennis at a small age of five years old. She triumphed in the Orange Bowl Championship in Florida at eleven years of age. The entire family shifted to the United States of America in 1986 and Seles took admission in the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she practiced for a period of two years.
Seles contested in her first professional championship back in 1988 at a small age of fourteen years. The next year, she participated in the professional tour and gained her first career trophy at Houston back in May 1989, where the Serbian defeated Chris Evert in the final match. Just after a month, Monica made her way into the semi final of her very first Grand Slam singles championship at the French Open, where she was knocked down by World Number one Steffi Graf, 6–3, 3–6, 6–3. Seles ended her first season on the tour listed number six in the world’s ranking.
Seles earned her first major singles trophy back in 1990 at the French Open tournament. Meeting World number one Steffi Graf in the final match, Seles prevented four set points in her very first set tiebreaker, which she succeeded 8–6, and took the game in straight sets. As a result, Monica became the youngest ever French Open singles champion from the women’s side at sixteen years of age. The left handed player also triumphed in the 1990 season ending Virginia Slims tournament, knocking down Gabriela Sabatini in a total of five sets. She finished off the year ranked number two in the world.
Heading on the same lines, Monica through the next couple of years won a number of matches against amazing tennis stars such as Jana Novotna, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Martina Navratilova, Venus Williams, Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Maria Sharapova, Jennifer Capriati,Kim Clijsters, Amanda Coetzer, along with major title victories including Wimbledon, French Open as well as Australian Open.
Monica gained a total of twenty two titles from January 1991 to February 1993 and made her way into thirty three final matches out of the total of thirty four championships she contested
The left handed tennis sensation retired from international tennis back on 14th February 2008. However, her career stats still speaks high of her beyond any measure of speculations.
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