25 years after their five-set showdown, Gabriela Sabatini and Monica Seles will compete against one other at Garden.

The year 1990 marked the beginning of the return of parity in the women’s game, which had been absent for a couple of seasons due to Steffi Graf’s historic dominance to the sport. There was no other place where this was more obvious than at the Grand Slams, which are the most prestigious competitions in the game, where there were four different winners. During the Women’s Tennis Association Championships held in New York, two of those champions, Monica Seles (French Open) and Gabriela Sabatini (US Open), competed against each other for the second time in their respective careers. They fought their way through a field of sixteen players.

In 1988, when Seles was only 14 years old and playing as an amateur, Sabatini had previously triumphed over Seles in a match. Over the course of two years, however, Seles had undergone a significant transformation, and she had become a formidable adversary to Graf’s rule.

In the championship match, Seles triumphed in the first set by a score of 6-4, as was typical of her play style. However, Sabatini did not appear to be surprised. The Argentine player, who was no longer content with looping heavy groundstrokes, evolved into a more attacking player. It was this style of play that helped her win her first Grand Slam championship, which she accomplished by defeating Graf in the US Open in that same year. The second and third sets were won by Sabatini, who took advantage of the speedy carpet surface and mixed things up by playing an all-court approach. On the other hand, it was difficult to maintain momentum against Seles due to her destructive return and two-fisted groundstrokes. She went on to win the next two sets with relative ease, becoming the youngest player to win the year-end championship just before she turned 17 years old.

89:

That is the number of years that had passed since the previous time a women’s match that consisted of five sets was played, which was in 1901 at the United States National Championships.

2.

At the end of the year, Seles ended in second place, behind Graf.

9)

This was Seles’ tenth title of the year, and it came in the Championships.