📍Novi Sad, Serbia
1973 – 1986“Monica Seles was born in Novi Sad, then in Yugoslavia and now in Serbia, in December 1973, into an ethnic Hungarian family. Novi Sad is a handsome old city on the Danube in the flat plains of Vojvodina. Her father, Karolj, was a cartoonist and television documentary maker, and her mother, Esther, a computer programmer; her older brother, Zoltan, was one of the country's top junior tennis players. Wanting to beat her brother, Monica started playing at about six in a car park near their apartment, with a net strung between two cars. Her father, who had no formal tennis training, became her coach. To make practice fun, he drew cartoon faces on the tennis balls and told her to hit them, and he drew pictures in a notebook to explain tactics. She developed an unusual two-handed style on both sides, hitting the ball early and hard, and grunted as she struck it. Her mother and grandmother thought a girl shouldn't spend so much time on tennis, but Monica and her father carried on. By nine she was winning national junior titles, and she won the prestigious Orange Bowl junior tournament in Florida at eleven. At twelve she moved with her family to the United States to train at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. In 1990, at sixteen, she became the youngest French Open champion, and she won eight Grand Slam titles before a spectator stabbed her during a match in Hamburg in 1993. She later returned to win the Australian Open and became an American citizen.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today