Graf-Seles: A Media Dream!

The iconic Graf-Seles rivalry in women's tennis reshaped gender coverage in media, and the narrator wonders about its dreamcatcher.

One more media love-letter dedicated to the unforgettable Graf-Seles rivalry in women's tennis, which reshaped the way we conceived of gender-d in modern civilization! Enjoy,  

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My name's Amlan Satan. I've worked for an Interpol agency involving baron-sphere subversion of blood-diamond (warlord-mined 'conflict gems' from Africa/Europe used to finance terrorism!) smuggling in North America before retiring from government operations work to become a freelance sports-photojournalist for the Daily Times in LA. Working for the Times has been great, and it feeds my youthful passion for sports fanfare. I'm a particular fan of professional tennis and specifically women's tennis, despite the fact that I'm male! In fact, I'm a huge fan of the iconic Graf-Seles rivalry in pro-women's tennis. This is an undervalued story in modern media coverage of sports and women's sports and hence gender politics relevant to new era consumerism/entertainment. It's ironic that the Graf-Seles rivalry isn't weight as heavily as, say, the Becker-Edberg rivalry or Borg-McEnroe rivalry in men's pro-tennis! Isn't it ironic?

Women have come a long way in sports and broadcast sports media. Women did participate in various forms in competitive activity to mirror/parallel men's activities since Early Man. However, sports didn't really 'flower' for women in sports until the 20th Century, and really not till the late 20th Century, and in my honest estimate, culminating in the quintessential Graf-Seles rivalry in pro-women's tennis. It's known that the seemingly 'invincible' Steffi Graf (Germany) was simply dominating women's tennis after her only challenging aging rivals (Evert/Navratilova) retired! Graf was defeating every single opponent in women's tennis, capturing virtually every Grand Slam (French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open) title and without giving up a single set in her 3-set matches. Graf was simply the female version of Goliath, and while modern media was eating that up, it made women's tennis somehow eerily predictable and arguably boring.

That's when the hot young Yugo firebrand Monica Seles splashed onto the women's pro-tennis arena. She was a phenom from a young competitive age and then shocked people when she dethroned Steffi Graf in the 1992 French Open women's final in an epic 3-set complete match culminating in a 10-8 final-set victory by the upstart Seles. Seles went on to grab an immaculate head-to-head rivalry with the German Graf. Their predicted Grand Slam championships/finals nevertheless were incredibly exciting, as it was somehow shockingly as 'predictable' to claim that Monica Seles would most likely win the match...and not Graf. This shift in media-coverage predictions really impacted the way we addressed women's sports in modern media. Women were given strange new spotlights regarding the ebb-and-flow of competitive nonviolent activity. It was considered a miracle in gender-broadcasting in the 20th Century.

So what motivates a government operator to suddenly become an illustrious gender-coverage sports-photojournalist for the Times? Well, perhaps it's the notion that new era commerce and media creates a special imagination about the living vitality of globalized activity and modern social networking! After all, today we see politicians, artists, athletes, and religious individuals alike sharing space on social networks (on 'Internet') and embracing all the capitalism amenities of a globalized world (e.g., Wall Street, Netscape, Netgrocer, etc.). Don't we wish to appreciate how women-in-sports has impacted and even shaped the nature of species consciousness and media intelligence? This is the Age of Good Networks ('AGN'), and the iconic Graf-Seles rivalry illuminates the undeniable magic of international diaries. If I'm doing a touring sports story for the Times and stay at the Courtyard hotel and notice Graf or Seles vacationing there in the USA, I might ask them if they appreciate why hotel-WiFi reflects modernism dollars!

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)