Sabatini Gets Revenge to Close Chapter on Rivalry With Seles

It is fair to call the eight-year head-to-head rivalry between Monica Seles and Gabriela Sabatini one-sided. Seles and her powerful two-handed groundstrokes dominated, with every one of the duo’s seven Grand Slam, WTA Championship and Olympic matches going the way of the American.

The last six of those meetings, excluding a classic at the 1992 French Open, were landslides. Five times, Seles held Sabatini to only one game in a set. Their first match, at Madison Square Garden, however, is arguably one of the most historic contests in the history of tennis.

Twenty-five years ago, the two ladies met at Madison Square Garden, the home of this year’s BNP Paribas Showdown, in a match that lasted three hours and 47 minutes.

“I prefer not to be reminded too many times if you don’t mind,” Seles joked. The thing is, at 16-years-old, she came out the winner. “I just remember it was a five-setter and we both wanted to win it.”

Down two sets to one, Seles theoretically should have lost already. Sabatini fought from a set down to take the next two, pulling herself within one set of a victory on the carpet court of the WTA Championships.

“It was so long ago,” Seles said.

“Yeah it is,” Sabatini quickly added.

Neither could really remember exactly what happened. Instead, memories began to flow of a lot of hard work on the single court smack in the center of the World’s Most Famous Arena.

Seles evened things up and pulled away in the fifth and final set, marking the first match in the Open Era in which two women played a five-set match.

“But that’s why it was so special to be back,” Seles said prior to this year’s BNP Paribas Showdown about how their history of three matches in New York City, including the five-setter played a role in their return this March. The rematch marks the anniversary of something special.

They did not merely step off a plane and walk on to the court for an exhibition, either. Both Seles and Sabatini spent the months leading up to playing in front of a crowd of 14,894 preparing as if they were getting ready for a match on the WTA Tour.

“We both put our bodies through a lot of training,” said Seles. “We both trained a lot in the months leading up to this match at MSG, really dedicating our lives and schedules for it,” Seles said, adding the major factor in deciding to relive their historic match. “At this stage in our lives, it was just because we wanted to play in New York at MSG and there was no other factor involved.”

This time around, as the crowd slowly filed in under far different circumstances, with gasps and applause rather than a title on the line, it was not about struggling for every point, but having fun. Sabatini would hang on for an 8-5 victory in a much less tension-filled 37 minutes than the match of a quarter century ago, it was more a matter of whether or not the win could make up for the pain of her most heart-wrenching defeat.

“Well now I can say, yes,” Sabatini said. “Before … I wasn’t sure of that.”

It was not necessarily all about the quality of play, either. Understandably, neither athlete would be anywhere near their level that produced one of the more famous matches of recent memory.

“We played some nice tennis,” Sabatini said. “Just stepping out on this court again is amazing.”

Now, Gabriela Sabatini can finally close the book on one of the more unique matches on one of the more unique stages in all of sports.

Credit all photos to Calvin Rhoden