Monica Seles Opens Up About Life With Myasthenia Gravis
Monica Seles, the legendary nine-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1, has shared for the first time that she’s been living with myasthenia gravis, a rare neuromuscular autoimmune disease. The diagnosis came in 2022, though the journey began years earlier when she started noticing strange symptoms during casual tennis games. She remembers swinging at a ball, missing, and realizing she was seeing double — two balls instead of one. That was a warning sign she couldn’t ignore.
For someone who built her life around precision, power, and agility, those early signs were unsettling. Doctors eventually sent her to a neurologist, and the diagnosis stunned her. She admits she had never even heard of the condition before. Myasthenia gravis can cause muscle weakness, affect vision, speaking, swallowing, and even facial expressions. Everyday activities like blowing her hair dry or walking up stairs became unexpectedly exhausting.
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Seles has kept the news private until now, choosing to speak out ahead of this month’s US Open to raise awareness and offer the kind of voice she wishes she had when she was first diagnosed. At 51, she’s learned there’s no cure yet, but management and adaptation are possible. She describes it as adjusting to a “new normal” — a phrase that carries extra weight in her life.
This is not the first time Seles has had to adapt. She calls these moments “hard resets.” At 13, she left her home in Yugoslavia for the United States, unable to speak the language and separated from her family. At 16, she rose to stardom, dealing with fame, money, and pressure far beyond her years. At 19, she survived a brutal on-court stabbing in Germany, returning two years later to a hero’s welcome at the 1995 US Open. Now, myasthenia gravis has brought another reset — one requiring patience, self-compassion, and resilience.
Despite everything, her tone is not one of defeat. She speaks to young athletes she mentors about the importance of adapting, telling them, “The ball is bouncing, and you’ve just got to adjust.” For Seles, that lesson has moved beyond the court and into daily life. She may not be chasing titles anymore, but she’s still meeting challenges head-on, using the same determination that made her one of tennis’s fiercest competitors.
In her remarkable career, Seles spent 178 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world and won every major except Wimbledon, where she reached the final in 1992. Now, her victory lies not in lifting trophies, but in living fully with a condition she never saw coming — and in making sure others facing it know they are not alone.
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