It was 25 years ago that Monica Seles and Gabriela Sabatini played a historic tennis match. It was the final of the season-ending women’s championship, now the BNP Paribas WTA Finals, and these two legends of the game played a five set final. It was at Madison Square Garden, arguably the most famous sporting arena in the world.
On March 10 these two ladies of the court will be back in action for the BNP Paribas Showdown which will also feature Roger Federer playing Grigor Dimitrov.
It promises to be quite a night as the Showdowns for World Tennis Day have become quite a date on the sporting calendar.
Irrespective how long a tennis player may have been in retirement, the competitive juices never leave and both women have been training for the night and are most definitely looking forward to the match, as well as being able to catch up socially. What better place to do it than in New York City?
Officially Seles and Sabatini met 14 times – the first time was in Miami in 1988 and Gaby won, the last time was in 1996 in Montreal and Monica. Three times they met at the Garden and Seles won each time including that match in 1990.
These days both women taken things a bit easier but that is definitely not to say they are leading a life of leisure. Busy they certainly remain.
Gaby has her line of best-selling perfumes as well as property interests – in fact the recent Fed Cup by BNP Paribas first round tie between Argentina and USA was held at a luxury country club that she has a share-holding in.
Monica meanwhile has property investments and stock holdings and has her own vodka brand called Pure Wonderseles. She also owns several restaurants called Fat Seles Burger and has interest in a football team called Novi Sad Angeles. Oh and there is a perfume for young girls named With Love from Monica while her fashion label is named Monica Seles Seduction. She is also engaged to billionaire entrepreneur Tom Golisano.
