Monica Seles (born December 2 1973) is a former world No. 1 professional Yugoslav-American tennis player, who played for both Yugoslavia and the United States. Although born in the former Yugoslavia, she became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994. She has won nine Grand Slam singles titles, including four Australian Open women's singles titles. She became the youngest-ever champion at the French Open in 1990. She was the top ranked player in the women's game during 1991 and 1992.

In October 2007, Monica Seles was appointed by the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition, IIMSAM, as a Goodwill Ambassador and Spokesperson for its Global Sports for Peace and Development Programme Initiative to counter malnutrition and for the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Seles (Serbian: Моника Селеш, Monika Seleš; Hungarian: Szeles Mónika (pronounced ) was born in Novi Sad, SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Vojvodina, Serbia) to Hungarian parents.

Considered to be one of the best players of all time, Seles began playing tennis at the age of six, coached by her father Károly Szeles. She won her first tournament at the age of nine, despite not fully understanding the scoring system of the game and having only a vague idea of whether she was leading or trailing her opponents during matches. In 1985 at the age of 11, she won the Orange Bowl tournament in Miami, Florida, and caught the attention of tennis coach Nick Bollettieri. In 1986, the Seles family moved from SFR Yugoslavia to the United States, and Seles enrolled in the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she trained for two years.

Seles played her first professional tournament in 1988 at the age of 14. The following year, she joined the professional tour full-time and won her first career title at Houston in May 1989, where she beat Chris Evert in the final. A month later, Seles reached the semifinals in her first Grand Slam singles tournament at the French Open, where she lost to World No. 1 Steffi Graf, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 . Seles finished her first year on the tour ranked World No. 6.

With punishing, sharp-angled two-fisted forehand and backhand shots and a dominating return of serve, Seles is considered by many to be the first "power player" in the women's game, paving the way for players such as Venus and Serena Williams, Lindsay Davenport, and Maria Sharapova. She was also well-known for grunting loudly on court. On a few occasions, her opponents claimed that the grunting was distracting and prevented them from hearing the ball make contact with her racquet.

A remarkable aspect of her style, the two-handed forehand, was expected to make her reach shorter, but she manages to compensate for the shorter reach by being able to hit balls much harder, with more top-spin, allowing her to hit sharper angles. Also, she had very fast feet, allowing herself to run down balls and get into a position to return a shot.

Seles won her first Grand Slam singles title at the French Open in 1990. Facing World No. 1 Graf in the final, she saved four set-points in a first-set tie-breaker, which she won 8-6, and went on to take the match in straight-sets. In doing so, she became the youngest-ever French Open champion at the age of 16 years, 6 months. She also won the 1990 season-ending championships, defeating Gabriela Sabatini in five sets, finishing the season ranked No. 2.

1991 was the first of two years in which Seles dominated the women's tour. She started out by winning the Australian Open in January, beating Jana Novotná in the final. In March, she replaced Graf as the World No. 1. She then successfully defended her French Open title, beating the former youngest-ever winner Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final. However, instead of playing at Wimbledon, she took a six-week break, blaming shin splints. But she was back in time for the U.S. Open, and won it beating Martina Navrátilová in the final to cement her position at the top of the world rankings. She also won the season-ending championships, beating Navratilova in four sets.

1992 was an equally dominant year. She successfully defended her titles at the Australian Open, the French Open, and the U.S. Open. She also reached the final at Wimbledon, but could not manage to break Graf's dominance on the grass court surface and lost 6-2, 6-1. Some observers, however, attribute her lop-sided loss to her decision to remain silent throughout the match, resulting in less penetrating shots. Two opponents (including Navrátilová in the semifinals) had strongly complained about Seles' screams.

During the period from January 1991 to February 1993, Seles won 22 titles and reached 33 finals out of the 34 tournaments she played. She compiled a 159-12 win-loss record (92.9% winning percentage), including a 55-1 win-loss record in Grand Slam tournaments. In the broader context of her first four years on the circuit (1989-1992), Seles had a win-loss record of 231-25 (90.2% winning percentage) and collected 30 titles. Only Evert had a better first four years in terms of winning percentage (91.1% from 1971 to 1974) and titles (34) in the open era..

Seles was the top women's player heading into 1993, having won the French Open three consecutive years and both the U.S. Open and Australian Open in consecutive years. In January 1993, Seles defeated Graf in the final of the Australian Open, which to date was her third win in four Grand Slam finals with Graf.

Everything, however, changed following an incident that shocked the tennis world on April 30, 1993. During a quarterfinal match with Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg in which Seles was leading 6-4, 4-3, a 38-year-old deranged fan of Graf, Günter Parche, ran from the middle of the crowd to the edge of the court during a break between games and plunged a boning knife between Seles's shoulder blades. She let out a piercing scream and was quickly rushed to a hospital. Her physical injuries took a few weeks to heal, but the psychological scars from this incident apparently left a much deeper impression on Seles. She did not return to competitive tennis for over two years.

Parche was charged following the incident but was not jailed because he was found to be psychologically abnormal and was instead sentenced to two years' probation and psychological treatment. The incident prompted a significant increase in the level of security at tour events. Seles vowed never to play tennis in Germany again.

During her layoff from competitive tennis, Seles became a United States citizen on May 17, 1994.

Seles returned to the tour in August 1995 and won her first comeback tournament, the Canadian Open, beating Amanda Coetzer in the final 6-1, 6-0. Many believed that she would soon be dominating the circuit again in the way she was before the 1993 stabbing incident. The following month at the U.S. Open, Seles lost the final to Graf 7-6, 0-6, 6-3, after having held set-point in the first set.

In January 1996, Seles won her fourth Australian Open, beating Anke Huber in the final. But this was to be her last Grand Slam title. Seles struggled to recapture her best form on a regular basis. Her difficulties were compounded by having to cope with her father and long-term coach Károly being stricken by cancer and eventually passing away in 1998. Seles was runner-up at the U.S. Open to Graf again in 1996. Her last Grand Slam final came at the French Open in 1998 (a few weeks after her father's death). She defeated world No. 3 Novotna in three sets and world No. 1 Martina Hingis in straight sets before losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets.

After becoming a U.S. citizen in 1994, Seles helped the U.S. team win the Fed Cup in 1996 and 2000. She also won a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

In the spring of 2003, Seles sustained a foot injury that has sidelined her from the tour ever since. In February 2005, she played two exhibition matches in New Zealand against Navrátilová. Although Seles lost both matches, she played competitively and announced that she could return to the game early in 2006. She did not do so, however. In December 2007, she said to the press that Lindsay Davenport's successful return to the tour has inspired her to consider her own limited comeback to play Grand Slam tournaments and the major warm-up events for those tournaments. She said she will make a firm decision about the comeback in early 2008. Her first tournament probably would be in Key Biscayne, Florida in March.

Seles was listed as the 13th greatest player of all time (men and women) by (U.S.) Tennis magazine and was also one of 15 women named by Australian Tennis magazine as the greatest champions of the last 30 years (players were listed chronologically). Seles is also known as one of the greatest "big point" players of all-time, having tremendous mental fortitude during the toughest situations on the court.

Like Maureen Connolly, whose career was cut short by injury, Seles's career probably was affected by the stabbing incident, although it is impossible to know the course of her career had this not happened. Her trajectory was indicative of future greatness. During the height of her career (1990 French Open through the 1993 Australian Open), she won 8 of the 11 Grand Slam singles tournaments she contested.

*1989: Dallas (lost to Martina Navratilova) *1989: Brighton (lost to Steffi Graf) *1991: Indian Wells (lost to Martina Navratilova) *1991: San Antonio (lost to Steffi Graf) *1991: Hamburg (lost to Steffi Graf) *1991: Rome Masters (lost to Gabriela Sabatini) *1991: San Diego (lost to Jennifer Capriati) *1991: Oakland (lost to Martina Navratilova) *1992: Rome Masters (lost to Gabriela Sabatini) *1992: Wimbledon (lost to Steffi Graf) *1992: Los Angeles (lost to Martina Navratilova) *1992: Montreal (lost to Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario *1993: Paris (lost to Martina Navratilova) *1995: US Open (lost to Steffi Graf) *1996: US Open (lost to Steffi Graf) *1996: Oakland (lost to Martina Hingis)

*1997: Miami Masters (lost to Martina Hingis) *1997: Charleston (lost to Martina Hingis) *1997: Madrid (lost to Jana Novotná) *1997: San Diego (lost to Martina Hingis) *1998: French Open (lost to Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario) *1998: Moscow (lost to Mary Pierce) *1999: Toronto (lost to Martina Hingis) *1999: Tokyo (Princess Cup) (lost to Lindsay Davenport) *2000: San Diego (lost to Venus Williams) *2000: New Haven (lost to Venus Williams) *2000: WTA Tour Championships (lost to Martina Hingis) *2001: San Diego (lost to Venus Williams) *2001: Los Angeles (lost to Lindsay Davenport) *2002: Tokyo (lost to Martina Hingis) *2003: Tokyo (lost to Lindsay Davenport) *2003: Dubai (lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne)

*1997: Chicago (with Lindsay Davenport) *1998: Philadelphia (with Natasha Zvereva) *1999: Miami Masters (with Mary Joe Fernandez)

*NH = tournament not held *A = did not participate in the tournament *SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played *
¹ The Indian Wells tournament achieved Tier I status only in 1996.

* Seles is left-handed. * Seles was the first female tennis player to win her first six Grand Slam singles finals: 1990 French Open, 1991 Australian Open, 1991 French Open, 1991 U.S. Open, 1992 Australian Open, and 1992 French Open. * Seles won the first five set women's singles match in many years, in 1990 against Gabriela Sabatini at the year end WTA Tour Championships. * Until her loss to Martina Hingis at the 1999 Australian Open, Seles had a perfect record at the event (33-0), which is the longest undefeated streak for this tournament. It also marked her first defeat in Australia, having won the Sydney tournament in 1996. * Seles was the first female player since Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling in 1937 to win the women's singles title three consecutive years at the French Open. Chris Evert, however, won the title four consecutive times she played the tournament (1974, 1975, 1979, and 1980). In 2007, Justine Henin won her third consecutive French Open singles title. * Seles' final against Martina Navratilova at the 1991 U.S. Open was the only all left-handed women's singles final of a Grand Slam event. * The age gap between Seles (17 years old) and Navratilova (34 years old) at the 1991 U.S. Open was the largest in a Grand Slam women's singles final. * Seles appeared on the sitcom The Nanny as herself. * Seles won the inaugural Sanex Hero of the Year award in 2002. This award was voted by fans around the world. * Young Elders, a band from Melbourne, Australia sent their song called Fly Monica Fly to Seles while she was recuperating from the 1993 stabbing incident. According to her autobiography the song provided inspiration to her at that time and Seles subsequently met the band (who later changed their name to The Monicas) following her victory at the Australian Open in 1996. * Singer/songwriter Dan Bern has a song about Seles on his Fifty Eggs album entitled "Monica". *With eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday, Seles holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a teenager.

* List of female tennis players

* * Fed Cup record * Monica Seles unofficial website * Monica Seles Site -unofficial website, has Video clips of her matches and a very active forum * Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition (IIMSAM)