Tennis legend Monica Seles has revealed she was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease three years ago.
The 51-year-old, who won nine grand Slam titles throughout her career on the court, said she has been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis – a neuromuscular autoimmune disease that causes weakness in voluntary muscles – as she spoke out on the illness for the first time.
Now, ahead of the US Open, which begins on August 24, the Serbian-American spoke out on the disease for the first time to raise awareness.
Seles, who shot to fame when she won her first major trophy at age 16 at the 1990 French Open, told The Associated Press that she first noticed the symptoms while she was swinging a racket.
‘I would be playing with some kids or family members, and I would miss a ball. I was like, “Yeah, I see two balls.” These are obviously symptoms that you can’t ignore,’ Seles, who was shockingly stabbed during a match in 1993, said.
‘And, for me, this is when this journey started. And it took me quite some time to really absorb it, speak openly about it, because it’s a difficult one. It affects my day-to-day life quite a lot.’
Tennis legend Monica Seles has revealed she was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease
The Hall of Famer won nine grand Slam titles throughout her career on the court
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke calls it ‘a chronic neuromuscular disease that causes weakness in the voluntary muscles’ and ‘most commonly impacts young adult women (under 40) and older men (over 60) but … can occur at any age, including childhood.’
Seles said that she had been completely unaware of the condition before she saw a doctor over her symptoms.
‘When I got diagnosed, I was like, ‘What?!’ said Seles, who is partnering with argenx, an immunology company headquartered in the Netherlands, to promote their Go for Greater campaign. ‘So this is where — I can’t emphasize enough — I wish I had somebody like me speak up about it.’
She was referred to a neurologist after noticing double vision and weakness in her arms. Seles revealed that even drying her hair had become a challenge.
The International Tennis Hall of Famer admitted that she has had to take time to adjust to her ‘new normal,’ learning to live life with her condition.
‘I had to, in tennis terms, I guess, reset — hard reset — a few times. I call my first hard reset when I came to the U.S. as a young 13-year-old (from Yugoslavia). Didn’t speak the language; left my family. It’s a very tough time.
‘Then, obviously, becoming a great player, it’s a reset, too, because the fame, money, the attention, changes (everything), and it’s hard as a 16-year-old to deal with all that. Then obviously my stabbing — I had to do a huge reset,’ Seles said.
‘And then, really, being diagnosed with myasthenia gravis: another reset. But one thing, as I tell kids that I mentor: ‘You’ve got to always adjust. That ball is bouncing, and you’ve just got to adjust,’ she added. ‘And that’s what I’m doing now.’
The retired star won her first Slam at the age of 16 in France, becoming the youngest to do so
Seles said that she first noticed symptoms, including double vision, while swinging a racket
At 16, Seles became the youngest Grand Slam winner when she defeated Steffi Graf in the final of the 1990 French Open.
There then followed her period of dominance which saw her win two more Roland Garros titles, three Australian and two US Opens. Only defeat by Graf in the Wimbledon final of 1992 stopped her from clinching the calendar Slam that year.
However, her on-court charge came to a shuddering halt in 1993 when, aged 19, she was attacked by a crazed fan while playing in Germany.
While playing the quarter final match in a tournament in Hamburg against Magdalena Maleeva, Guenter Parche, an unemployed German man, stabbed Seles in the back.
He plunged a nine-inch serrated boning knife one-and-a-half inches into Seles’ upper back, just millimeters away from her spine.
Images from the day show the tennis idol being stretchered off the court and whisked to hospital. Her attacker was wrestled to the ground.
It later became clear that Parche had attacked her because he was a deranged fan of Graf, Seles’s fiercest rival.
A psychiatric evaluation later declared that he had wanted to ‘teach Monica Seles a lesson’, commenting on her athletic figure, saying she was ‘not pretty. Women shouldn’t be as thin as a bone’.
On April 30th 1993, Seles, was stabbed by Guenter Parche, an unemployed German who had an obsession with fellow player Steffi Graf
The Tennis Hall of Famer admitted that she has had to take time to adjust to her ‘new normal’
Yet, by sheer will and determination, Seles mad a miraculous recovery, making her return to tennis at the 1995 Canadian Open, which she won, before competing at the US Open.
Seles, who had become a US citizen in 1994, made it to the final at Flushing Meadows but ultimately lost to Graf.
‘The way they welcomed me … after my stabbing, I will never forget,’ Seles said about the fans in New York. ‘Those are the moments that stay with you.’
Seles got back to a point where she won the Australian Open in 1996 and made the final of Roland Garros two years later. In 2003, she retired from tour tennis, not long after having sustained a foot injury.
