Monica Seles says she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis – a neuromuscular autoimmune disease – three years ago.
The nine-time grand slam singles champion says she first noticed symptoms of the disease while she was swinging her 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 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.”
Seles, who won her first major, the 1990 French Open, at the age of 16 and played her last match in 2003, said she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis three years ago and is speaking publicly about it for the first time before this month’s US Open to raise awareness of the condition.
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”. There is currently no known cure.
The 51-year-old said she’d never heard of the condition until she was referred to a neurologist after noticing symptoms such as double vision and weakness in her arms – “just blowing my hair out … became very difficult,” she said – and legs.
“When I got diagnosed, I was like, ‘What?!’” said Seles. “So this is where – I can’t emphasize enough – I wish I had somebody like me speak up about it.”
The disease can also cause difficulty in swallowing, speaking and affect facial expressions.
It’s been three decades since Seles returned to competition at the 1995 US Open, making it to the final, more than two years after she was stabbed at a tournament in Germany.
“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 says she is learning to live a “new normal” and characterized her health as another in a series of life steps that required adapting.
“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 US 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. And that’s what I’m doing now.”
Seles won nine grand slam singles titles during her playing career, with Wimbledon being the only major she missed out on, although she did reach the final in 1992. Her 178 weeks at No 1 is sixth all-time in WTA history.
