Tennis legend Monica Seles opens up about battle with myasthenia gravis
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Tennis legend Monica Seles opens up about battle with myasthenia gravis")
Monica Seles Photograph: (AFP)
The 51-year-old former tennis player, who won her first major trophy when she was 16 at the 1990 French Open and played her last match in 2003
Tennis legend Monica Seles first experienced the symptoms of myasthenia gravis — a neuromuscular autoimmune disorder she talked about in a recent interview with The Associated Press — while she was swinging a racket the way she'd doing it so many times throughout, and after, a career that featured nine Grand Slams and a spot in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
“I would be playing with some kids or family members, and I would miss a ball. I was like, ‘Yeah, I see two balls.’ These are obviously symptoms that you can’t ignore,” Seles was quoted saying to AP. “And, for me, this is when this journey started. And it took me quite some time to really absorb it, speak openly about it, because it’s a difficult one. It affects my day-to-day life quite a lot.”
Seles, 51, who won her first major championship when she was 16 at the 1990 French Open and last competed in 2003, said she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis three years ago and is publicly disclosing it for the first time before the US Open, which begins on August 24, to draw attention to what is known as MG.
What is myasthenia gravis?
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke refers to it as "a chronic neuromuscular disease that causes weakness in the voluntary muscles" and "most frequently affects young adult women (under 40) and older men (over 60) but. can occur at any age, including childhood."
Seles said she'd never previously heard of the condition when she visited a doctor and was referred to a neurologist after experiencing symptoms including double vision and weakness in her arms — "just blowing my hair out. became very difficult," she was quoted saying— and legs.
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I was like, 'What?!' when I got diagnosed," Seles, who is working with argenx, an immunology firm based in the Netherlands, to advocate for their Go for Greater campaign, said. "So this is where — I can't stress enough — I wish I had someone like me say something about it. It's been three decades since Seles returned to competition at the 1995 US Open, making it to the final, more than two years after she was attacked by a man with a knife at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany.
“The way they welcomed me. after my stabbing, I will never forget,” Seles said about the fans in New York. “Those are the moments that stay with you.” She discusses learning to have a "new normal" today and described her health as another in a long line of life transitions that called for adjusting.
“I had to, in tennis terms, I guess, reset — hard reset — a few times. I refer to my first hard reset when I arrived in the US as a young 13-year-old (from Yugoslavia). Didn't speak the language; left my family.” It's a really difficult period. Then, of course, becoming an incredible player, it's a reset, too, because the fame, money, the spotlight, all that changes (everything), and it's difficult for a 16-year-old to cope with everything. Then obviously my stabbing — I had to do a massive reset," Seles was further quoted saying. "And then, literally, being diagnosed with myasthenia gravis: another do-over. But one thing, as I say to kids that I mentor: 'You've got to always tinker. That ball is bouncing, and you've just got to tinker,'" she said. "And that's what I'm doing now.
