Monica Seles captured her third successive French Open title beating a defiant Steffi Graf 10-8 in the third set of one of the most absorbing and tantalising matches in women’s tennis history. Graf, with the 16,500 Roland Garros crowd cheering her in unison, saved five match points before going under at the end of a battle of attrition which lasted two hours 43 minutes. The 18-year-old Seles gasped with relief when a Graf forehand hit the net on the sixth match point to give the Yugoslav a 6-2 3-6 10-8 victory. “That’s the best final I ever played,” Seles told the crowd after accepting the trophy. “It was too bad both of us couldn’t have won. It was so close and we both played a great match.” Graf, fighting back to tears, told her fans: “It was a great final and she deserved to win. One thing I have to say, I’ve played in a lot of tournaments but I’ve never had a crowd like this, never ever.”
Other important events:
1654 Sweden’s Queen Christina abdicates, shocking Europe, and is succeeded by Charles X.
1809 Sweden declares independence and the constitutional monarchy is established.
1884 Under the Treaty of Hue, the emperor of Vietnam recognises French protectorate.
1889 The Great Seattle Fire, Washington, destroys the entire central business district of the city.
1925 Walter Percy Chrysler establishes Chrysler Corp.
1944 Allied troops lands in Normandy on D-Day to begin the liberation of western Europe from Nazi Germany.
1966 Black activist James Meredith is shot and wounded while walking along a Mississippi highway.
1967 Egyptians close Suez Canal during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
1972 A coal mine explosion in Rhodesia kills 431 workers.
1973 West Germany completes the ratification of a treaty to normalise its relations with East Germany.
1982 Israel invades Lebanon with 60,000 troops to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
1984 Indian troops raid the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab, to flush out terrorists.
1985 Israel withdraws its troops from Lebanon after a three-year occupation.
1993 At least 460 refugees, most of them women and children, are massacred in Liberia.
1994 Brian Lara rewrites the cricket record books with the world’s highest first-class innings of 501 not out.
1994 A Chinese airliner on a domestic flight from the tourist centre of Xian crashes, killing all 160 people on board.
1996 Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz resigns.
1997 Close allies of President Liamine Zeroual sweep to victory in Algeria’s new parliament.
2001 Dubai Police launches e-government services.
2002 Famous Egyptian cinema director Radwan Al Kashef dies at the age of 50.
2005 Sharjah Ring Road is inaugurated.
2006 Bahrain names Mona Jasem Al Kawari as judge, the first woman to hold such a post in the GCC region.
2007 Cyclone Gonu lashes the UAE’s east coast.
2008 Bombs rip through two buses in Sri Lanka, killing 23 people.
2012 The Kuwaiti Emir refuses to sign a bill passed by parliament stipulating the death penalty for major religious offences.
2013 A new Palestinian government, headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, is sworn in Ramallah.
2015 Barcelona wins the Champions League trophy against Juventus at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
2016 26-year-old army officer Deshauna Barber is crowned Miss USA.
