"I wasn't trying to get her off balance or do any kind of gamesmanship" - When Martina Navratilova complained about Monica Seles grunting at Wimbledon
Monica Seles is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She enjoyed a sensational career in which she won nine Grand Slam singles titles, with eight of those coming while she was still a teenager.
Seles dominated women's tennis in the early 1990s before her career was derailed by a stabbing incident in Hamburg in 1993. She returned to the WTA Tour but was not the same player she once was. Nonetheless, she enjoyed a career good enough to cement her status as one of tennis' all-time greats.
Besides her game, Seles was also well-known for her grunts and there were instances when her colleagues were annoyed by this.
One such instance came at the 1992 Wimbledon Championships when she faced Martina Navratilova in the semifinals. Seles won the match 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-4 to book her place in the final of the grass-court Major. During the match, Navratilova complained about Seles' grunting to chair umpire Fran McDowell twice.
The then-Yugoslav said after the match that there were moments during the match when she told herself not to grunt. Seles also claimed that she didn't realize she was grunting.
"There were two or three points when I said, 'Monica, don't grunt! Don't grunt!' But it's such a tense match. I guess probably when it became really close, in a tiebreaker or whatever, I probably was grunting again - which I don't realize I'm doing," Monica Seles said (via NYTimes).
Martina Navratilova claimed that the then-teenager's grunts kept getting louder and louder. She added that it was hard for her to hear when her opponent hit the ball. She also stated that while Seles didn't grunt on purpose, she could've stopped doing it.
"Well, it just gets louder and louder. You cannot hear the ball being hit. I was on my heels a couple of times because I thought she hit it hard - and she did not. I couldn't hear it. Her argument is she is not doing it on purpose. But she can stop it on purpose, you know," Navratilova said.
A journalist later countered Navratilova's argument by saying that everyone could hear Seles' grunt and her hitting the ball. The Czech-American claimed that she wasn't trying to get her opponent off balance by complaining to the umpire.
"Am I on trial here or is her grunting on trial? I was complaining when I was winning, you know. It was close. I wasn't trying to get her off balance or do any kind of gamesmanship on my part," Navratilova said.
She added that Monica Seles deserved to win on the day and would have won the match even if she had not grunted.
"You know, I don't want to take anything away from Monica. Grunting or not, she is a great player and certainly deserved to win today. I think she would have beaten me even without the grunt," Navratilova said.
Monica Seles led 10-7 in the head-to-head against Martina Navratilova
Monica Seles and Martina Navratilova locked horns on 17 occasions, with the former leading their head-to-head 10-7.
The first meeting between the two came in the final of the Virginia Slims of Dallas in 1989, with Navratilova winning 7-6 (2), 6-3.
They faced one another in just one Grand Slam final at the 1991 US Open, with Seles winning 7-6 (1), 6-1.
The last meeting between Monica Seles and Martina Navratilova came in the final of the 1993 Open Gaz de France, with the latter winning 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (3).