Tennis
For several years, one of the great champions of the modern era has existed as a kind of tennis ghost.
Monica Seles won nine Grand Slam titles, seven of them before her 19th birthday. Tennis is a sport in which “phenom” trips off the tongue with ease; Seles, with her two-handed groundstrokes on both wings and her ability to paint lines from anywhere, at any time, defined it. Seles spent 91 weeks in a row as world No. 1, playing 34 tournaments in that time. She reached the final in 33 of them.
In April of 1993, Seles and Steffi Graf were dueling for supremacy at the top of the sport when a fan fixated on Graf stabbed Seles at an event in Germany. She came back from over two years of physical and mental turmoil and promptly won two more Grand Slams, even as the place where she displayed her gifts to the world — the tennis court — lost its safety.
Seles, in a word, reset, while carrying the weight of what had happened. She retired from tennis in 2008, continuing to play exhibitions alongside other luminaries, including John McEnroe and Chris Evert. She played regularly, mentoring younger players.
