Monica Seles is a fantastic tennis champion and athlete. She was dominant in her sport throughout the early part of her career until the unfotunate and horrific incident in Hamburg, where a crazed Steffi Graf fan stabbed the superstar in the back during a tournament in 1993.
Leading Magdelena Maleeva in a quarter-final match, the dominant Seles was rushed to hospital and thankfully recovered well. Although her injuries where not career-threatening, Seles found it hard to make a comeback for two years. But, like any true champion, Seles returned in style to the WTA tour.
It was an unfortunate turn of events for the 19-year-old. She had been winning tournaments since the age of 16 and was the youngest French Open champion when she won in 1990 at the age of only 16 years and six months.
She broke the domination that Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova had held during the late 80s and, as the new girl on tour, Seles started to make herself into one of the best female tennis players ever, if not THE best.
During her most dominant years in 1991 and 1992, Seles won back-to-back Australian, French and US Open championships as well as the tour-ending finals. The only tournament which eluded her was Wimbledon where she found it difficult to cope with the grass-court game of Graf, who beat her 6-2 6-1 in the 1992 final.
Before the stabbing, Seles was set to continue winning Grand Slam after Grand Slam. Nothing looked like being able to stop her. Her double-handed shots where powerful enough to blow most of her opponents off the court.
What also impressed me was that at such a young age she won so many big tournaments - even when Navratilova, Graf, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Gabriela Sabatini where still performing well. It was brilliant from the Yugoslavian, who changed her nationality to American in 1994.
When Seles came back to play on the tour in late 1995 she was still a force to reckoned with, winning her first tournament comeback and then reaching the final of the US Open, where she narrowly lost to Graf.
The next year Seles won her ninth and final Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open, defeating German suprise finalist Anke Huber. She only went on to reach one more Grand Slam event as the one-time powerhouse of the game could not cope with the competition as she had in the early 90s.
She won the last of her 53 singles titles in 2002. Seles played in more than 80 singles finals - and was no mug on the doubles court either, winning six tournaments in her career. She was a revelation in the sport and deserves her place amongst the world's best tennis players.
It is difficult to say how many more tournaments Seles would have won if she hadn't been stabbed. Her mentality would have been so much stronger and she would have had at least three more years where she could have picked up a host of top trophies.
Although Graf and Navratilova have won more tournaments throughout their careers, Seles showed a maturity beyond her age and could have been better than both these players in different circumstances.
Monica is a true great who has battled various problems in her career and still managed to be successful. She almost single-handedly brought the power game into women's tennis, a style which is now in abundance on the WTA tour thanks to Maria Sharapova, the Williams sisters et al.
Tennis today owes a lot to Monica Seles and I for one was saddened that her planned comeback this year failed to materialise. Who knows what she could have achieved?
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