5 Tennis Players Who Were Successful After Comebacks

Monica Seles

Seles may even have doubled her Majors tally had it not been for the unfortunate stabbing

Pipped to be one of tennis’ Greatest of All Time, former World No. 1 Monica Seles was well on that path, and up against the biggest talent of the day, Steffi Graf, the then-Yugoslav ace had impressed and then some.

She had already won nine majors by 1993, eight of them as a teenager. Given her stupendous form and impressive gameplay, many expected Seles to surpass her own records by miles.

In the run-up to 1993, Seles had amassed a number of titles on Tour as well and set WTA records en route.

Unfortunately, all that would change in 1993, when she was still ranked World No. 1.

At that infamous Hamburg quarter-final against Magdalena Maleeva, a crazed fan of German ace Steffi Graf – Seles’ biggest competition, stabbed Seles in the back with a boning knife.

The physical injuries healed in fairly quick time, but the extreme mental trauma the attack caused saw Seles abstain from tennis for two years, and vowing never to play tennis in Germany again, with her attacker not receiving a prison sentence.

Making a comeback in August 1995, Seles won the first tournament she played – that year’s Canadian Open, and dropped only 14 games en route to the title, a record at the tournament.

She continued that form into the US Open, speeding through to the finals where she lost to nemesis Steffi Graf – but managed to scrape a set off the ace in the best-of-3 final.

Only months later, Seles managed to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Open, and was down two match points to upcoming American star Chanda Rubin. Seles, however, managed to pull off a mammoth comeback to set up a final against Germany’s Anke Huber, and won her 10^th Grand Slam title - the 1996 Australian Open.

Although that was her final Major title, Seles managed a couple of other finals – incidentally, the US Open final that same year, where she lost again to Graf, and the finals of the French Open in 1998, when she lost to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.

After a few sporadic years, Seles officially announced her retirement in 2008, but her inspiring comeback from what is considered the most traumatising event in the history of tennis is extraordinary.