September 26, 2000: The day Monica Seles won the Olympic bronze medal in Sydney

Every day, Tennis Majors takes you back to one of the most iconic moments in tennis history. On September 26, 2000, Monica Seles beat Jelena Dokic in straight sets to claim the bronze medal at the Sydney Olympic Games

Alexandre Sokolowski

September 26, 2023

What happened exactly on that day?

On this day, September 26 in 2000, Monica Seles won the bronze medal at the Sydney Olympic Games, defeating Jelena Dokic 6-1, 6-4. For Seles, who had previously lost to Venus Williams in the semi-finals (6-1, 4-6, 6-3), it was a big achievement in a season where, for the first time since she turned pro, she had failed to go past the quarter-finals of any Grand Slam tournament.

It also proved to be one of the last remarkable results in her career, which had started brilliantly, before she was the victim in a stabbing incident at the 1993 Hamburg Open.

The players: Monica Seles and Jelena Dokic

Monica Seles: the teenage prodigy whose career was tragically interrupted

Monica Seles had been one of the most successful players in the world at a young age. Her powerful two-handed groundstrokes, her innovative way of hitting the ball remarkably early and with so much power, and of course her trademark grunting, represented an absolute revolution in the women’s game.

In 1990, at the age of 16, she became the youngest ever player to win Roland-Garros. It was the start of her domination on the tour. In March 1991, aged 17, she became the youngest world No 1 in tennis history, knocking Steffi Graf from the throne she had been sitting on since the summer of 1987.

From January 1991, Monica Seles won seven out of the eight Grand Slam tournaments she entered, losing only the 1992 Wimbledon final, setting a 56-1 win-loss record. Furthermore, she claimed three WTA Championships in a row in 1990, 1991 and 1992.

Her career was brutally interrupted, however, on April 30, 1993, in the quarter-finals of the Hamburg Open, when she was stabbed during the changeover by a mentally unstable fan of her rival, Steffi Graf. The psychological wound turned out to be much deeper than the knife-blow itself. Although Seles was physically ready to play just a few months afterwards, it would be over two years before she competed on the tour again.

Seles came back successfully in 1995, claiming the title in Toronto, proving herself worthy of her No 1 ranking by crushing her opponents one after the other, including Amanda Coetzer (ranked No 27) in the final (6-0 6-1). A few weeks later, she was beaten in the US Open final by Steffi Graf in three sets (7-6, 0-6, 6-3). At the start of 1996, aged 22, she won her final Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open. In the final, she defeated Anke Huber, from Germany (6-4, 6-1).

After that, she remained in the top 10 but, suffering from eating disorders and weight issues that she would later go on to describe in her book, she never lifted a Grand Slam title again. She still reached the championship round twice, at the 1996 US Open (defeated by Graf, 7-5, 6-4) and at Roland-Garros 1998 (defeated by Sanchez, 7-6, 0-6, 6-2).

The place: The Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre

The Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre is a tennis and multi-purpose sports facility located within the Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia. The centre was built in 1999 and hosted the tennis events for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Its Center Court, which would be later renamed the Ken Rosewall Arena, had a capacity of 10,500 spectators.

The facts: Seles dominates Dokic to win in straight sets

On September 26, 2000, Seles, representing the United States of America, and Dokic, representing Australia, faced each other in the bronze medal match at the Sydney Olympics. Seles had been defeated by fellow American, Venus Williams, in the semi-finals (6-1, 4-6, 6-3), while Dokic had lost to Russian Elena Dementieva (2-6, 6-4, 6-4).

Dokic, who had grown up in Sydney, had the crowd’s full-throated support, while Seles had only her American teammates, including the Williams sisters, to cheer for her. “We had a wonderful women’s tennis team: Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport, and me (and Serena Williams won the gold in doubles with her sister). Even though we were competitors, everyone was supportive of each other in Sydney.”, Seles would remember 12 years later in Vogue.

Seles had not won a Grand Slam tournament in more than four years, but she only struggled to beat the very top players. “She just hasn’t gotten over the hump of beating players like Martina Hingis, the Williams sisters and myself,” Olympic teammate Lindsay Davenport said, according to ESPN.com. “She beats everybody else. She has been working very hard, and hopefully she’ll make her breakthrough to go back on top soon. Her movement has been a little bit of a factor, but when she’s there, she hits the ball better than anybody.”

What next? Seles would get inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame

Monica Seles would fail to claim another major title in the following years. Struggling with a foot injury, she would play her last match ever at Roland-Garros in 2003, which she would lose against Nadia Petrova (6-4, 6-0), although she would only announce her official retirement in 2008 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2009.

Jelena Dokic would claim five titles and finish runner-up six times between May 2001 and July 2002, climbing as high as No 4 in the rankings. Struggling with her abusive father, she would change nationalities twice, and her career would not match her promising start. She would never reach a Grand Slam semi-final again. Post retirement, Dokic would go on to become a leading tennis commentator on television.