In 1991 Steffi played only the 11th-best of 15 full seasons (regarding match winning percentage). But still won both of her 2 matches against Seles that year. Says it all.
Amazing level of play, shame we could not have more matches between these two legends. You can see how Steffi was one of the only players who could beat Monica with her vicious sliced backhand, amazing speed and powerful forehand. Monica's power from both sides changed the game forever. Such a shame for Monica ( and us tennis fans) that such a unique player was stopped by a terrible event. Bless you Monica I wish I saw more of you in better conditions, it would have been the Federer/Nadal matches of the 90's.
This was their first meeting when Monica dethroned Steffi and took the top ranking, so Steffi was eager to prove that she could take it back. Even in today’s standard, the quality of this match is amazing. 👍
@@carrerau7138 So true. Iga lacks variety, and with weak serve. Aryna will just bash everything, and with inconsistent serves. Rybakina is just so inconsistent.
Maybe the best match Steffi played in the whole of 1991. She was unrecognisable here from the anxious, confused player who lost so many matches to Gaby that year. You can see her pushing Monica way behind the baseline - something very few players could do like that.
Yes, Steffi played great here. But in the early 90s, it seemed like the longer you kept Steffi on the court and kept retrieving ball after ball with a lot of high topspin, Steffi would become very brittle and anxious. Sabatini was a master at exposing that in 1991 and 1992. And by adding the net rushing strategy to her game, she had another way to hurt Steffi as catching her off-guard at the net was one of the best ways to play her.
Of course, Sabatini was playing very good in that period, and most importantly, her game was totally different from Monica's, being just ideal to exploit the very few, very small weaknesses in Steffi's game. She was one of the few players who was not in constant trouble on Steffi's sharp and relentless slice, being able, on her backhand, to answer consistently with a very tricky mix of deceptive slice and her trademark very heavy topspin, adding some sudden lethal winners to the mix. Steffi was very aware that she really needed to play some more aggressive topspin backhands against the best Gaby, but those years were exactly her worst period for this shot, especially on high balls. Gaby's forehand was less remarkable, but still steady, heavy of topspin, plus she had very good passing shots from that side too. Add to this the net propension and very good hand, and you'll understand why Graf was losing so many matches to Gaby. When Sabatini was in the right day, limiting unforced errors and short balls, Steffi had practically no way to win points, other than hitting winner after winner... which of course she was very good at doing, but you know, even for a genius like Graf it can't always be easy against a player like Sabatini, with very good hand at the net, good passing shots and ample court coverage, and having to routinely hit those winners higher than the shoulder... all this, while also having to play a lot of backhand passing shots. It needed the very best Graf, to really control Sabatini's good days (which were not so many, we know).
@menicosommati443 Many good points. I also think Sabatini could read Graf's game the best out of anyone out there. There were times where she would be standing in a certain part of the court because she knew Graf was likely to hit the ball there. But I also think Graf's slice backhand wasn't as good in the early 90s as it was in the late 80s. I remember reading about how she broke her thumb in a skiing accident in early 1990. When she came back later that year during the claycourt season, many noticed that she was hitting her backhand closer to her body than before and she wasn't opening the face of her racket as well as she did before. It went from a hard and vicious slice backhand into a short and choppy one. Her down the line slice backhand and topspin backhand kind of disappeared during that time. Her down the line slice backhand came back into full force in 1995 though.
@@gk891absolutely. I always thought that was especially evident when Gaby came in on that sharply angled cross court slice backhand. She knew Steffi would run around it and none times out of ten hit it "inside in" down the line. Like you say, Gaby was literally standing there waiting for it.
The level at which these two played was inconceivable for it being the early-90s. It's as though they were playing a different sport than all the other girls on tour at the time. No two players changed the sport more / were further ahead of their peers (applies to any sport honestly) in my opinion.
@@carrerau7138 Technically the sport would've eventually developed into what it is now, yeah. But there's no denying they accelerated its evolution and inspired an entire generation to follow in their footsteps. Take Graf/Seles out of the picture and Navratilova/Evert type players would've still been at the top for another decade.
@@thb1091 No, that would not be the case. Modern widebody rackets extinguished the style Navratilova/Evert played. Not Steffi/Seles. BTW, especially Evert (!) would have been a great player in the 21st century as well, with modern racket technology.
@@carrerau7138 The best players of the early-mid 90s after Steffi and Monica were mostly neutral baseliners in the mold of Evert (MJF, Maleeva), net-rushers / all-court players in the mold of Navratilova (Novotna), or topspin artists (Sabatini, Martinez). The only other power players were Capriati and Pierce, neither of whom were dominant. Again, Navratilova and Evert's games would've become antiquated eventually, but those types of players were phased out of slam contention much earlier than they would've been in a world without the incredible power play of Graf/Seles. Yes, racquets also had something to do with it; racquets also aren't magic wands. Steffi and Monica showed how to make use of the more powerful racquets and the ensuing generations learned from them. Hence, they changed/evolved/revolutionized the game.
So many cross-court top spin backhands by Steffi... very unusal for her, especially later in her career - which is a shame, because she hit them very well in this game.
I think they would've ended up winning every single slam over a 6-year period ('91-'96). Both finishing with ~18 slams in the universe that Monica isn't stabbed is highly likely IMO.
@@thb1091 every single one. Cause the fact Monica came n reached finals on 95 us open bagel Graff is second set shows that it would have crazy rivalry that 93-95 period
@@thb1091That is nonsense. You can’t extrapolate the future in tennis from 2 or 3 years. I remember how Andreescu and Osaka would dominate in the 2020s. And later it was Raducanu and L. Fernandez. And Henin, Venus and Serena would dominate from 2008 on….
Seles could only challenge on the slowest courts on the tour - clay and rebound ace. Look at their H2H and you will find that other than on those slow surfaces that gave the ball a high bounce, Seles did not win a single match against Steffi. Pre and post stabbing. She had the fire power but lacked the ground speed.
This match really shows how superior was Steffi. Much faster and more compact movement, much more court coverage, much superior ability to control a lot of different shots, superior serve, much better hand, even more power. Monica's true strength was NOT the power of her shots (her rally shots had actually the same pace of Steffi's slice backhand), but rather her ability to hit very early AND consistently, mantaining a very good ball placement (hence, being able to find very tricky and sharp angles too). This ability took a lot of time away from her opponents. Plus, she was not the fastest moving player, but she was extremely good in reading opponents' shots, and her feet were very fast on short-medium range movements, making her very consistent and very dangerous when she had the upper hand in a rally. But what most blocked Steffi's game in those three slam finals against her, was mainly her menthal strength, which Steffi was very honest in saying it was intimidating her. Of course, Monica was a true giant under this aspect, but also Steffi was pretty strong either. I think that, without that horrendous aggression suffered by Monica, their H2H in the long run would've seen Steffi as the most winning player. I think that Steffi was just a phenomenal player under every single aspect of the game, and this would've given her the edge, but overall, this two great champions would've granted us of many majestic matches.
Another aspect to Monica's game that was so outstanding was that not only was she amazing at reading her opponents' shots but her court positioning was probably the best in the ladies game. Combine that with her incredible anticipation and her super-long arms, getting a ball by her was a huge feat.
@@gk891 yeah true, and to this we can add that when needed, she was able to hit some very decent single-handed forehand passing shots on the run (instead, she was quite vulnerable if she was forced to hit repeatedly one-handed forehands in a rally, in these situations she was prone to hit weak/short balls... this was part of Hingis' gameplan to neutralize her)
@@pierdomenicosommati443Steffi and Monica were the pioneers of baseline power play on the women's side, but I do think it goes to show you just how far ahead of the field they were that they were as dominant as they were with a couple of notable idiosyncrasies in their games. Steffi with her late preparation on the FH (though she still struck it on the rise) that Monica could exploit by rushing her, and Monica with her double-handed FH that Steffi could exploit by maneuvering her from corner to corner. Definitely would've been interesting to see how different the nuances of their games would've been had they come along a decade+ later.
@@thb1091 Oh yeah, Steffi's forehand preparation was so weirdly late, and on backhand as well... if you try to measure her timing in shot preparation, you'll notice that she ALWAYS started the movement with the bounce of the ball, on both FH abd BH, no matter how fast it was coming (perhaps except some very slow looping shots, in those cases she started even later). She actually maintained this timing for all her career. At higher paces, hitting with that type of timing is really, REALLY hard, and a very strong arm is needed (which Steffi definitely had). However, it gives one distinct advantage too: such a timing made it impossible to read her shots. When she began to mix it up more and more and being less predictable, this was a strong advantage.
@@pierdomenicosommati443 100% on that. I'm not old enough to have seen Steffi's career live, but when I first began watching her tapes a while back, the first thing that stood out to me was how well she disguised her shots and manipulated the opponent's court positioning. It's truly marvelous how perfectly all of her unique athletic gifts worked in harmony.
Imagine a world No 1 who still think it's okay to hit moon balls just to disrupt your opponent. Seles and Hingis (for trying the underarm serves against Graf in 1999's FO final) were simply lacking class!
Seles owned Graf at this time. She won 7 of 8 slams and was far above everyone , and hadn’t even reached her potential yet. Then Gunther Parsche came. …
Seles never owned Graf. She beat the field not Steffi. From 1991-93 it's Steffi who leads their h2h 3-2. It was Sabatini who beats Steffi 7 out 8 matches from 1990-92. So credit must goes to Sabatini for beating Steffi so many times rather than Seles who unable to dominate Steffi even in her peak.
1991, supposedly the beginning of Seles's dominance. but Graf totally exposes the weaknesses in the Seles's game: her movement, her one-handed forehand when stretched, her lack of athletic ability, and just the overall ugly nature of her strokes. of course Seles has power and precision when her shots are on the spot, but overall her game is just inferior in both aesthetic and athletic terms to that of Graf...
One thing that's always left out (partly because it's counterintuitive in a way) in a comparison of Graf and Seles is that it was actually Steffi whose game matched up better with other baseliners. As you said, Seles wasn't nearly the athlete Graf was and had limited reach due to her double-handed shots on both wings, and that definitely matters when the opponent also boasts a strong ground game as Steffi proves in this match. Graf on the other hand had powerful shotmaking herself, but could win even when she wasn't merely out-slugging the opponent thanks to her variety and defensive prowess (both with the slice and the court speed). It's why Seles had a harder time with Capriati (though Monica obviously still had the upper-hand) than Graf did, and why Graf also fared significantly better against the next-gen of power players (Davenport, Serena, Venus...not a power player but Hingis as well) when both were past their primes. The reason Seles was the #1 player in the world from '91-'93 was not that she was beating Steffi herself (2-3 H2H), but that she was better at overpowering the tour's fading-but-remaining serve-and-volleyers (a combination of the BH side being Steffi's weaker wing + Monica being left-handed meaning what would've been a BH passing shot for most was a FH for her) and grinders (Steffi was prone to getting impatient - hence ASV gave her trouble). It wasn't until the 94-96 stretch (coincidentally after Seles was tragically taken out) that the tour began to see a rise in the number of baseline hitters. I still view Seles as a mount rushmore female tennis player, and she definitely could've/would've adapted and continued to progress had she not been robbed of her early-20s; but Steffi's versatility and drive for perfection both in terms of her skillset and her athleticism made it so she was always the more adaptable problem solver with a higher ceiling as a player.
@@thb1091 i agree with almost everything that you say here. the ONLY thing that I will quibble with is this constant thing about how she was robbed of many more slams, etc. i agree it was all a tragic event for her. but that steely resolve DURING matches seemed to be absent after the stabbing. she lost that warrior spirit, but it was something for her to recover and demonstrate once again. she spent MORE THAN TWO VERY LONG YEARS before she came back!!! Kvitova, who suffered MORE SERIOUS stabbing wounds during a home invasion was back on the tour after six months!!! everybody knew that Graf was way superior in the athleticism department; but Monica was supposed to be the one psychologically stronger and emotionally more stable. turns out, no. i think she overindulged herself, developed eating problems, and found out it became so much harder getting back in shape. she still won one more slam. and defeated Graf once more time. but she could no longer play 5, 6, 7 straight matches, week in and week out, and invariably triumph... i think if she had gone back to the tour after six months, she could have asserted her dominance again...
@anthonydecastro6938 I think that actually there were some inherent weaknesses in Monica's game, together with that astonishing mental strength, and with that combination of anticipation, early hitting, consistency, ability to find narrow angles, which in her first years found her opponents not ready to react. I think that those (relative) inherent weaknesses were mainly in the lack of the athletic support needed to be able to maintain her consistency and her performance also when many other players got accustomed to higher paces, when the progress in equipments (racquet, strings) allowed for faster rallies and overall easier ball control. Her ideal gameplan was hitting a few balls, before starting to put the opponent on the run and throwing her from one side to the other... not just trying the winner on every single ball. She much preferred to calculate the risks she was taking, and she was fabulous in this. When she returned to competitive tennis, everything was already a little bit faster, Steffi was hitting harder than ever and playing a much less predictable game, she had begun to mix it up really, really well... Monica tried to counterpunch that by hitting winner after winner, but that 100% risk tennis was NOT her ideal game. After a relatively short time, several other players started to force her to do the same: she simply couldn't stay in rallies waiting for the right ball anymore, like she was used to do before the stabbing: she lacked the athletic strength to do that, because the overall pace of rallies was not that of '90/'93 anymore. She was forced to avoid rallies as much as possible, while her main strength in her golden era was actually how she played the most dramatic rallies in the most dramatic moments of the most important matches. In the extremely aggressive tennis she was playing at her comeback, her mental strength just couldn't express at the best level, because she wasn't able to forget all the errors that that kind of game implies. In simple words, she was extremely good at exploiting that transition period, but at the same time she lacked some of the "equipment" needed to overcome all those changes of game style... and I think that by 1996/1997, she would've lacked that equipment anyway, even without any stabbing incident.
@@pierdomenicosommati443 Really like what you said about how Seles' wasn't really a natural risk taker (in the way Steffi sort of was) - that's part of why a low # of unforced errors was a distinct strength of hers (pre stabbing at least). Whereas Steffi based her game around throwing in huge first serves, inducing a weak return, then going for the lines from the first stroke, Monica was more of a 'power grinder' - someone who overwhelmed her opponents physically to create an opening (she was really a more aggressive Hingis if you will). People are under the impression that Seles just hit Graf off the court, but that just isn't true - as this match proves, Steffi was more than capable of blowing Monica away with her supreme shotmaking and athletic ability. What Monica did so very well in her victories over Steffi was rush Steffi with early returns, catch her off guard by playing her forehand, and retrieve every would-be-winner (worked well on clay and rebound ace where Steffi was effectively forced to hit perfectly due to the slowness of the court in conjunction with Monica's relentless pressure); by doing those things, she was able to wear Steffi down and make her lose confidence in her shotmaking. On the flipside, this is also why Seles struggled against the likes of Venus and Davenport in the late-90s and early-00s - that generation of stars hit even harder than Steffi or Monica did, so Monica really had no choice against them but to try and pound the ball even more but was ultimately outclassed on every stroke (I know that's after the stabbing, but I doubt too much would've changed in a matchup with prime Venus/Lindsay and 92/93 Monica).
@@thb1091 actually, post stabbing Seles had a couple periods in which she was exactly as lean as before. Everybody looks at her comeback UsOpen, where she clearly had a few kg's more, but where she more than compensated by hitting like hell... In regards of that tournament, she admittedly talked about having played best than ever, and she also said that after the match, she and Steffi talked together during the ceremony about that, commenting about how greatly they both played, how both enjoyed having each other at such a high level, and ultimately delighted about having played a hell of a match... not to mention the relieve of Steffi, who despite not having any responsibility in what happened to Monica, for 2½ years couldn't help but feeling guilty "because she couldn't stop thinking about that man having done that for her". Too many people don't even try to imagine how difficult this thing can have been for Steffi too.
The level of tennis from both (especially from Steffi) was amazing. Hard to think that match was played in 1991.
The girls today wouldn't have much of a chance. Incredible serving and ground strokes. Graf is amazing 🤩
In 1991 Steffi played only the 11th-best of 15 full seasons (regarding match winning percentage).
But still won both of her 2 matches against Seles that year.
Says it all.
And won Wimbledon!
Amazing level of play, shame we could not have more matches between these two legends. You can see how Steffi was one of the only players who could beat Monica with her vicious sliced backhand, amazing speed and powerful forehand. Monica's power from both sides changed the game forever. Such a shame for Monica ( and us tennis fans) that such a unique player was stopped by a terrible event. Bless you Monica I wish I saw more of you in better conditions, it would have been the Federer/Nadal matches of the 90's.
This was their first meeting when Monica dethroned Steffi and took the top ranking, so Steffi was eager to prove that she could take it back. Even in today’s standard, the quality of this match is amazing. 👍
Especially in today’s standard.
@@carrerau7138 So true. Iga lacks variety, and with weak serve. Aryna will just bash everything, and with inconsistent serves. Rybakina is just so inconsistent.
I have a tournament here this weekend! Watching this gets me hyped. I still can't believe these courts hosted The Golden Slam champion.
Best of luck! Many wins and winners. Do it like Steffi. 👍🏆
Maybe the best match Steffi played in the whole of 1991. She was unrecognisable here from the anxious, confused player who lost so many matches to Gaby that year. You can see her pushing Monica way behind the baseline - something very few players could do like that.
Yes, Steffi played great here. But in the early 90s, it seemed like the longer you kept Steffi on the court and kept retrieving ball after ball with a lot of high topspin, Steffi would become very brittle and anxious. Sabatini was a master at exposing that in 1991 and 1992. And by adding the net rushing strategy to her game, she had another way to hurt Steffi as catching her off-guard at the net was one of the best ways to play her.
Of course, Sabatini was playing very good in that period, and most importantly, her game was totally different from Monica's, being just ideal to exploit the very few, very small weaknesses in Steffi's game. She was one of the few players who was not in constant trouble on Steffi's sharp and relentless slice, being able, on her backhand, to answer consistently with a very tricky mix of deceptive slice and her trademark very heavy topspin, adding some sudden lethal winners to the mix. Steffi was very aware that she really needed to play some more aggressive topspin backhands against the best Gaby, but those years were exactly her worst period for this shot, especially on high balls. Gaby's forehand was less remarkable, but still steady, heavy of topspin, plus she had very good passing shots from that side too. Add to this the net propension and very good hand, and you'll understand why Graf was losing so many matches to Gaby.
When Sabatini was in the right day, limiting unforced errors and short balls, Steffi had practically no way to win points, other than hitting winner after winner... which of course she was very good at doing, but you know, even for a genius like Graf it can't always be easy against a player like Sabatini, with very good hand at the net, good passing shots and ample court coverage, and having to routinely hit those winners higher than the shoulder... all this, while also having to play a lot of backhand passing shots. It needed the very best Graf, to really control Sabatini's good days (which were not so many, we know).
@menicosommati443 Many good points. I also think Sabatini could read Graf's game the best out of anyone out there. There were times where she would be standing in a certain part of the court because she knew Graf was likely to hit the ball there.
But I also think Graf's slice backhand wasn't as good in the early 90s as it was in the late 80s. I remember reading about how she broke her thumb in a skiing accident in early 1990. When she came back later that year during the claycourt season, many noticed that she was hitting her backhand closer to her body than before and she wasn't opening the face of her racket as well as she did before. It went from a hard and vicious slice backhand into a short and choppy one. Her down the line slice backhand and topspin backhand kind of disappeared during that time. Her down the line slice backhand came back into full force in 1995 though.
@@gk891absolutely. I always thought that was especially evident when Gaby came in on that sharply angled cross court slice backhand. She knew Steffi would run around it and none times out of ten hit it "inside in" down the line. Like you say, Gaby was literally standing there waiting for it.
Teleport them into today's game and they'd still be meeting in finals
Exactly I mean Iga would be beaten comprehensively by both
@@GaryTornado-zy2mz Yes, when a Kalinskaya can beat Iga young Steffi or young Monica would have done that as well.
le niveau de ces 2 joueuses en 1991 est largement meilleur qu' aujourd' hui. impressionnantes steffi graf et monica seles.
Golden Era
outstanding tennis, shocking and boring womens tennis now,
The level at which these two played was inconceivable for it being the early-90s. It's as though they were playing a different sport than all the other girls on tour at the time. No two players changed the sport more / were further ahead of their peers (applies to any sport honestly) in my opinion.
Totally agree.
Nonsense.
The sport would be exactly the same today even if Graf and Seles had never existed.
@@carrerau7138 Technically the sport would've eventually developed into what it is now, yeah. But there's no denying they accelerated its evolution and inspired an entire generation to follow in their footsteps. Take Graf/Seles out of the picture and Navratilova/Evert type players would've still been at the top for another decade.
@@thb1091 No, that would not be the case.
Modern widebody rackets extinguished the style Navratilova/Evert played. Not Steffi/Seles.
BTW, especially Evert (!) would have been a great player in the 21st century as well, with modern racket technology.
@@carrerau7138 The best players of the early-mid 90s after Steffi and Monica were mostly neutral baseliners in the mold of Evert (MJF, Maleeva), net-rushers / all-court players in the mold of Navratilova (Novotna), or topspin artists (Sabatini, Martinez). The only other power players were Capriati and Pierce, neither of whom were dominant. Again, Navratilova and Evert's games would've become antiquated eventually, but those types of players were phased out of slam contention much earlier than they would've been in a world without the incredible power play of Graf/Seles. Yes, racquets also had something to do with it; racquets also aren't magic wands. Steffi and Monica showed how to make use of the more powerful racquets and the ensuing generations learned from them. Hence, they changed/evolved/revolutionized the game.
So many cross-court top spin backhands by Steffi... very unusal for her, especially later in her career - which is a shame, because she hit them very well in this game.
❤❤❤
There was really no one to challenge once Monica got stabbed. Look at this match... That 93-95 run would have had legendary meetings
I think they would've ended up winning every single slam over a 6-year period ('91-'96). Both finishing with ~18 slams in the universe that Monica isn't stabbed is highly likely IMO.
@@thb1091 every single one. Cause the fact Monica came n reached finals on 95 us open bagel Graff is second set shows that it would have crazy rivalry that 93-95 period
@@thb1091That is nonsense.
You can’t extrapolate the future in tennis from 2 or 3 years.
I remember how Andreescu and Osaka would dominate in the 2020s.
And later it was Raducanu and L. Fernandez.
And Henin, Venus and Serena would dominate from 2008 on….
Seles could only challenge on the slowest courts on the tour - clay and rebound ace. Look at their H2H and you will find that other than on those slow surfaces that gave the ball a high bounce, Seles did not win a single match against Steffi. Pre and post stabbing. She had the fire power but lacked the ground speed.
@@torbenm2375 bla bla bla. She was 19 number one n on her way. Would have wiped the floor wit Graf if she had opportunity to develop.
Steffis too tough for monica😂😂😂😂😂
San Antonio rules. I play here all the time. Steffi didn’t take no s***.
The only female players with slice backhand (Graf) and 2 handed forehand (Seles)👍👍
There are a few other pros who mastered the slice backhand.
This match really shows how superior was Steffi. Much faster and more compact movement, much more court coverage, much superior ability to control a lot of different shots, superior serve, much better hand, even more power. Monica's true strength was NOT the power of her shots (her rally shots had actually the same pace of Steffi's slice backhand), but rather her ability to hit very early AND consistently, mantaining a very good ball placement (hence, being able to find very tricky and sharp angles too). This ability took a lot of time away from her opponents. Plus, she was not the fastest moving player, but she was extremely good in reading opponents' shots, and her feet were very fast on short-medium range movements, making her very consistent and very dangerous when she had the upper hand in a rally.
But what most blocked Steffi's game in those three slam finals against her, was mainly her menthal strength, which Steffi was very honest in saying it was intimidating her. Of course, Monica was a true giant under this aspect, but also Steffi was pretty strong either. I think that, without that horrendous aggression suffered by Monica, their H2H in the long run would've seen Steffi as the most winning player. I think that Steffi was just a phenomenal player under every single aspect of the game, and this would've given her the edge, but overall, this two great champions would've granted us of many majestic matches.
Another aspect to Monica's game that was so outstanding was that not only was she amazing at reading her opponents' shots but her court positioning was probably the best in the ladies game. Combine that with her incredible anticipation and her super-long arms, getting a ball by her was a huge feat.
@@gk891 yeah true, and to this we can add that when needed, she was able to hit some very decent single-handed forehand passing shots on the run (instead, she was quite vulnerable if she was forced to hit repeatedly one-handed forehands in a rally, in these situations she was prone to hit weak/short balls... this was part of Hingis' gameplan to neutralize her)
@@pierdomenicosommati443Steffi and Monica were the pioneers of baseline power play on the women's side, but I do think it goes to show you just how far ahead of the field they were that they were as dominant as they were with a couple of notable idiosyncrasies in their games. Steffi with her late preparation on the FH (though she still struck it on the rise) that Monica could exploit by rushing her, and Monica with her double-handed FH that Steffi could exploit by maneuvering her from corner to corner. Definitely would've been interesting to see how different the nuances of their games would've been had they come along a decade+ later.
@@thb1091 Oh yeah, Steffi's forehand preparation was so weirdly late, and on backhand as well... if you try to measure her timing in shot preparation, you'll notice that she ALWAYS started the movement with the bounce of the ball, on both FH abd BH, no matter how fast it was coming (perhaps except some very slow looping shots, in those cases she started even later). She actually maintained this timing for all her career. At higher paces, hitting with that type of timing is really, REALLY hard, and a very strong arm is needed (which Steffi definitely had). However, it gives one distinct advantage too: such a timing made it impossible to read her shots. When she began to mix it up more and more and being less predictable, this was a strong advantage.
@@pierdomenicosommati443 100% on that. I'm not old enough to have seen Steffi's career live, but when I first began watching her tapes a while back, the first thing that stood out to me was how well she disguised her shots and manipulated the opponent's court positioning. It's truly marvelous how perfectly all of her unique athletic gifts worked in harmony.
Will always wonder what couldve been if monica hadnt been stabbed🌺
Steffi would have won Wimbledon 94.
Imagine a world No 1 who still think it's okay to hit moon balls just to disrupt your opponent. Seles and Hingis (for trying the underarm serves against Graf in 1999's FO final) were simply lacking class!
Seles owned Graf at this time. She won 7 of 8 slams and was far above everyone , and hadn’t even reached her potential yet. Then Gunther Parsche came. …
Seles never owned Graf. She beat the field not Steffi. From 1991-93 it's Steffi who leads their h2h 3-2. It was Sabatini who beats Steffi 7 out 8 matches from 1990-92. So credit must goes to Sabatini for beating Steffi so many times rather than Seles who unable to dominate Steffi even in her peak.
Steffi owned #1 Seles.
5-2 H2H should even convince Steffi haters of this fact.
Wasn‘t his name Kuntha Bersch?
And he stabbed Moniker Salles?
You do realize, don't you, that Graf won this match? LOL
1991, supposedly the beginning of Seles's dominance. but Graf totally exposes the weaknesses in the Seles's game: her movement, her one-handed forehand when stretched, her lack of athletic ability, and just the overall ugly nature of her strokes. of course Seles has power and precision when her shots are on the spot, but overall her game is just inferior in both aesthetic and athletic terms to that of Graf...
One thing that's always left out (partly because it's counterintuitive in a way) in a comparison of Graf and Seles is that it was actually Steffi whose game matched up better with other baseliners. As you said, Seles wasn't nearly the athlete Graf was and had limited reach due to her double-handed shots on both wings, and that definitely matters when the opponent also boasts a strong ground game as Steffi proves in this match. Graf on the other hand had powerful shotmaking herself, but could win even when she wasn't merely out-slugging the opponent thanks to her variety and defensive prowess (both with the slice and the court speed). It's why Seles had a harder time with Capriati (though Monica obviously still had the upper-hand) than Graf did, and why Graf also fared significantly better against the next-gen of power players (Davenport, Serena, Venus...not a power player but Hingis as well) when both were past their primes. The reason Seles was the #1 player in the world from '91-'93 was not that she was beating Steffi herself (2-3 H2H), but that she was better at overpowering the tour's fading-but-remaining serve-and-volleyers (a combination of the BH side being Steffi's weaker wing + Monica being left-handed meaning what would've been a BH passing shot for most was a FH for her) and grinders (Steffi was prone to getting impatient - hence ASV gave her trouble). It wasn't until the 94-96 stretch (coincidentally after Seles was tragically taken out) that the tour began to see a rise in the number of baseline hitters. I still view Seles as a mount rushmore female tennis player, and she definitely could've/would've adapted and continued to progress had she not been robbed of her early-20s; but Steffi's versatility and drive for perfection both in terms of her skillset and her athleticism made it so she was always the more adaptable problem solver with a higher ceiling as a player.
@@thb1091 i agree with almost everything that you say here. the ONLY thing that I will quibble with is this constant thing about how she was robbed of many more slams, etc. i agree it was all a tragic event for her. but that steely resolve DURING matches seemed to be absent after the stabbing. she lost that warrior spirit, but it was something for her to recover and demonstrate once again. she spent MORE THAN TWO VERY LONG YEARS before she came back!!! Kvitova, who suffered MORE SERIOUS stabbing wounds during a home invasion was back on the tour after six months!!! everybody knew that Graf was way superior in the athleticism department; but Monica was supposed to be the one psychologically stronger and emotionally more stable. turns out, no. i think she overindulged herself, developed eating problems, and found out it became so much harder getting back in shape. she still won one more slam. and defeated Graf once more time. but she could no longer play 5, 6, 7 straight matches, week in and week out, and invariably triumph... i think if she had gone back to the tour after six months, she could have asserted her dominance again...
@anthonydecastro6938 I think that actually there were some inherent weaknesses in Monica's game, together with that astonishing mental strength, and with that combination of anticipation, early hitting, consistency, ability to find narrow angles, which in her first years found her opponents not ready to react. I think that those (relative) inherent weaknesses were mainly in the lack of the athletic support needed to be able to maintain her consistency and her performance also when many other players got accustomed to higher paces, when the progress in equipments (racquet, strings) allowed for faster rallies and overall easier ball control.
Her ideal gameplan was hitting a few balls, before starting to put the opponent on the run and throwing her from one side to the other... not just trying the winner on every single ball. She much preferred to calculate the risks she was taking, and she was fabulous in this. When she returned to competitive tennis, everything was already a little bit faster, Steffi was hitting harder than ever and playing a much less predictable game, she had begun to mix it up really, really well... Monica tried to counterpunch that by hitting winner after winner, but that 100% risk tennis was NOT her ideal game. After a relatively short time, several other players started to force her to do the same: she simply couldn't stay in rallies waiting for the right ball anymore, like she was used to do before the stabbing: she lacked the athletic strength to do that, because the overall pace of rallies was not that of '90/'93 anymore. She was forced to avoid rallies as much as possible, while her main strength in her golden era was actually how she played the most dramatic rallies in the most dramatic moments of the most important matches. In the extremely aggressive tennis she was playing at her comeback, her mental strength just couldn't express at the best level, because she wasn't able to forget all the errors that that kind of game implies. In simple words, she was extremely good at exploiting that transition period, but at the same time she lacked some of the "equipment" needed to overcome all those changes of game style... and I think that by 1996/1997, she would've lacked that equipment anyway, even without any stabbing incident.
@@pierdomenicosommati443 Really like what you said about how Seles' wasn't really a natural risk taker (in the way Steffi sort of was) - that's part of why a low # of unforced errors was a distinct strength of hers (pre stabbing at least). Whereas Steffi based her game around throwing in huge first serves, inducing a weak return, then going for the lines from the first stroke, Monica was more of a 'power grinder' - someone who overwhelmed her opponents physically to create an opening (she was really a more aggressive Hingis if you will). People are under the impression that Seles just hit Graf off the court, but that just isn't true - as this match proves, Steffi was more than capable of blowing Monica away with her supreme shotmaking and athletic ability. What Monica did so very well in her victories over Steffi was rush Steffi with early returns, catch her off guard by playing her forehand, and retrieve every would-be-winner (worked well on clay and rebound ace where Steffi was effectively forced to hit perfectly due to the slowness of the court in conjunction with Monica's relentless pressure); by doing those things, she was able to wear Steffi down and make her lose confidence in her shotmaking. On the flipside, this is also why Seles struggled against the likes of Venus and Davenport in the late-90s and early-00s - that generation of stars hit even harder than Steffi or Monica did, so Monica really had no choice against them but to try and pound the ball even more but was ultimately outclassed on every stroke (I know that's after the stabbing, but I doubt too much would've changed in a matchup with prime Venus/Lindsay and 92/93 Monica).
@@thb1091 actually, post stabbing Seles had a couple periods in which she was exactly as lean as before. Everybody looks at her comeback UsOpen, where she clearly had a few kg's more, but where she more than compensated by hitting like hell... In regards of that tournament, she admittedly talked about having played best than ever, and she also said that after the match, she and Steffi talked together during the ceremony about that, commenting about how greatly they both played, how both enjoyed having each other at such a high level, and ultimately delighted about having played a hell of a match... not to mention the relieve of Steffi, who despite not having any responsibility in what happened to Monica, for 2½ years couldn't help but feeling guilty "because she couldn't stop thinking about that man having done that for her". Too many people don't even try to imagine how difficult this thing can have been for Steffi too.
GRAFF TOO SERIOUS FACE.... SMILE PLEASE😂
Nadal or Djokovic don’t smile either.
Don’t be so sexist, please!