For all practical purposes, Monica Seles was already retired from competitive tennis before she issued her brief, fan-friendly statement on Thursday confirming the obvious.
Seles, now 34 years old, had not played a match on tour in nearly five years: not since losing to Nadia Petrova in the first round of the 2003 French Open. Since then, chronic foot problems and her own understandably high expectations had kept her from tiptoeing back into the game she once ruled.
But even if it has long been clear to the rest of us that she was never going to win a 10th Grand Slam singles titles or have the foot speed to keep up with her successors in extended, corner-to-corner rallies, Seles deserved all the time she wanted or needed - for commercial reasons or otherwise - to arrive at those conclusions on her own.
Read Full Article »
