Seles vs Graf, Roland Garros 1992: Ten–Eight, and Six Match Points to Get There

Saturday, 6 June 1992, Court Philippe Chatrier. Monica Seles was No. 1, the two-time defending champion and unbeaten in major finals. Steffi Graf was No. 2, a few days short of 23, and the crowd was hers from the first game. Two hours and forty-three minutes later Seles had won 6–2, 3–6, 10–8. The third set alone took ninety-one minutes.

The two hands

The table is thin on purpose. Seles had moved to Yonex in August 1990, which Wikipedia records. For this match, no source we read names a model, a string or a tension for either woman. What can be stated is the shape of the two games. Seles hit with two hands on both sides, a grip her father built into her game when she was a child. Graf hit with one. In Tennis.com's account, Seles's grunt grew louder with every lunging retrieval while Graf stayed silent. On clay, that contrast produced eighteen games in the deciding set.

Set by set

First set, Seles 6–2. Seles won twelve of the first fourteen points. Graf broke her to love late in the set, but the opening had already decided it.

Second set, Graf 6–3. Graf saved a break point at 0–2, broke for 4–3, saved three break points at 5–3 and then broke to love to level the match. The crowd clapped in rhythm and chanted her name.

Third set, Seles 10–8. Seles broke for 3–1, 4–2 and 5–3, and served for the title. Graf saved four match points in that game and came back to level. The set was then traded break for break: Seles broke for 8–7, Graf broke straight back, and Seles broke again for 9–8. Serving for the match for the third time, she went up 40–15. Graf saved the fifth match point with a forehand winner. On the sixth, a Graf forehand went into the net.

The AP's own account of the middle of the set is not fully consistent. One passage has Graf going ahead 6–5 and 7–6, and a later one describes 5–5 after a Graf break. The breaks at 8–7, 8–8 and 9–8 and the six match points are the same in every version.

The decisive passage

Graf's comeback at 5–3 was the closest she came. Four match points saved in one game, against a player serving for the title, should have changed the match. It changed the set instead, and only for a while: from there neither woman could hold serve for long, and Seles broke three more times. "I said to myself, 'Just go for it,'" Graf said about the final point. Going for it is how a player with one shot that good loses on a forehand into the net.

"It's the most emotional match I've ever played." — Monica Seles

What is not on this page

No ace counts, winner and error totals or serve percentages were published for this final in the sources we read. The figures above — score, date, duration, games, match points, prize money — are the ones that exist.

What it changed

Seles became the first woman since the 1930s to win three straight titles in Paris. By the AP's count she had six majors and had won the last five she entered. Wikipedia records that the match was later voted the best women's match of the 20th century. Graf won their Wimbledon final a month later 6–2, 6–1.

They never met again in a Roland Garros final at full strength. Within a year Seles was off the tour, and the rivalry this match promised was left unfinished. That is a large part of why it is still remembered: it is the one complete version of it on the slowest surface in the game.