Sixteen long years after having her career derailed, a renewed Monica Seles found reason to celebrate once again.

The best ballstriker in the past 25 years of women’s tennis – for reasons beyond her control –could not become the single most accomplished champion in the history of her sport, but the nine-time Major champion was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in July of 2009.

This Yugoslavian-born phenom, now an American citizen, is one of the most recent members of tennis’s most exclusive club. Not until the next Hall of Fame ceremony (in July of 2010) will a new set of icons enter Newport, Rhode Island, for a date with tennis immortality.

In the process of last year’s journey, Seles bound together the joys and sorrows that have marked a tumultuous yet deeply meaningful journey. A young woman ambushed by the trauma of a savage attack has now become a grown woman with a fuller understanding of life… and a piece of eternity as well.

In many ways, her moment in the sun offers Seles the chance to close the book on her young adult life, or more literally, to write a book. Seles used this Hall of Fame honor to promote a new book, “Getting a Grip: On My Mind, My Body, My Self.” The text of that title serves to encapsulate the ups and downs of a life that, once seemingly destined to rise to the very top of women’s tennis, took multiple turns for the worse before stabilizing in recent years.

It’s taken a long time for Seles to accept the unwanted path she’s traveled, but the combination of the Hall of Fame and her autobiography reveal a soul that has mended much of what ailed her over the past 16-plus years.

The day that the darkness first rolled into Monica Seles’s life was April 30, 1993. On that sunny afternoon in Hamburg, Germany, a black thundercloud of a man named Gunther Parche somehow breached security (much as the thrill-seeking “Jimmy Jump” managed to not only get on court, but touch Roger Federer, in the 2009 French Open men’s singles final) and stabbed Seles in the back. The experience was frightening for a woman just 19 years old at the time, and the pain of the knife was acute as it dug into the flesh of the best female tennis player on the planet.

Yet, for all the searing agony of the actual attack, the true demon enmeshed in that act of insanity (Parche plainly viewed himself as a huge fan of Seles’s main rival, Steffi Graf; that the attack occurred in Graf’s native Germany only added to the ugliness of the incident) was the lingering fear of stepping onto a court.

It took two and a half years for Seles to come back to the WTA Tour. True, a woman just 21 years old was still able to rediscover her trademark groundstrokes, which had already authored eight wins in Grand Slam tournaments before the stabbing. Yet, for a fierce on-court competitor, the psychology of sports had become something altogether different from what she had known and loved.

Seles would reach the final of the 1995 U.S. Open (losing to Graf in three sets) and then win the 1996 Australian Open for her ninth major crown, but as time passed in the second half of the 1990s, it became clear that Seles lacked the steely and ruthless consistency that brought her to the top of the women’s game.

The same person who–as a 17-year-old–memorably outlasted Jennifer Capriati in a spellbinding 1991 U.S. Open semifinal (7-6 in the third and final set, after roughly three hours of the best ballstriking ever seen from two mid-teen competitors) was now a slower, more uncertain version of her old, dominating self.

While she was still able to rack up a lot of quarterfinal and semifinal showings at the biggest events on the tennis calendar, Seles was no longer the force that chewed up the WTA Tour in the early ’90s, winning three straight Aussies (1991-’93), three straight Frenches (1990-’92), and two straight U.S. Opens (1991-’92).

Eating up Majors left and right, Seles was quickly compiling a career trajectory that would have enabled the Yugoslavian to exceed 20 Grand Slam championships, and challenge Margaret Smith Court (24 major singles titles) for first on the all-time list. But when Gunther Parche unleashed the forces of hell in Hamburg (thanks in part to the incompetence of lax security forces), that race to the top of women’s tennis came to an abrupt halt.

When one then considers the additional pain Seles endured when her beloved father-coach, Karolj, died in 1998, it’s even easier to understand why Monica couldn’t muster the magic in the latter stages of her career.

In many ways, it’s patently unfair to say that Seles won “only” nine slam titles. Given the wrenching and heartbreaking events that hijacked her sense of peace (and led her to engage in binge eating, a dark period discussed in her book), it’s so gratifying and edifying to see Seles–now in her mid-thirties and no longer in need of winning tennis matches–moving on with her life and looking forward to new joys in adulthood.

Tennis’s Hall of Fame is noted for its continuously controversial admissions standards. Relatively unaccomplished singles players (think Jana Novotna) have been able to earn a ticket inside the Hall of Fame’s gates. In Monica Seles’s case, however, the “what might have been?” clouds hanging over her career were never going to prevent this resilient woman from attaining the recognition she so deeply and richly deserved.

Monica Seles has been through hell and back. A monument to true tennis excellence throughout her career, Seles has received due honors from her sport, and the peace of mind she so fully needed when her life turned upside down.

Country                                   United States
Birth Date                               December 2, 1973
Residence                               Orlando, Florida
Height                                      5 ft 10
Weight                                     135 lbs.
Year Turned Pro                 1989 — Retired February 14, 2008
Highest Rank – Singles       No. 1 (March 11, 1991)
Highest Rank – Doubles    No. 16 (April 22, 1991)
Career Prize Earnings        US $14,891,762
Grand Slam (Singles)          9 titles
Australian Open                   4 (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996)
French Open                          3 (1990, 1991, 1992)
Wimbledon                             0 (one final, 1992)
U.S. Open                                2 (1991, 1992)
Grand Slam Doubles           0 titles

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