5. Steffi Graf vs. Monica Seles   Head to Head: 10–5, Graf   Essential Match: 1995 U.S. Open Final, Graf 7-6 0-6 6-3    By spring 1993, Monica Seles had won eight of the previous nine Grand Slams and usurped Steffi Graf as the best tennis player in the world. Seles played two-handed from both wings and hit powerful ground strokes with tremendous depth to all angles of the court. (You could hear the effort too. Her grunts were thunderous.) Then, in one of the great modern sports tragedies, she was stabbed by an obsessed Graf fan during a match in Hamburg, Germany. The injury wasn't severe but the emotional trauma resulted in a two-year hiatus. Seles returned in August 1995, won a warm-up tournament in Canada and challenged Graf in a memorable final at the U.S. Open later that summer.
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