In Paris, 1987, Steffi Graf arrives as the rising No. 2 seed—crushing early rounds, surviving a tense semifinal with Gabriela Sabatini, and stepping into a final that feels like a referendum on the sport’s future. Across the net is Martina Navratilova, the reigning No. 1, brilliant but visibly under pressure to hold off the new era. In the deciding set, Martina surges to a lead and serves for the championship—only for the match to swing on free points, nerves, and a closing stretch where Graf stays steady and capitalizes. The result is a French Open final that doesn’t just crown a champion—it signals a changing of the guard.

In March 1987, tennis fans are introduced to 13-year-old Monica Seles not through match footage, but through a hype machine. Nick Bollettieri brands her “the Baltic Basher,” calls her the best young player he’s ever seen, and frames her family’s ambition as singular: nothing less than No. 1. In this episode we learn the truth about Monica's first few months at the Bollettieri Academy, the price she paid for a tennis education that seemed too good to be true, and the Seles family that rallied not to make Monica No. 1, but to make her happy.

When Martina Navratilova loses in Rome in 1987, she doesn’t just brush it off—she bristles at the idea that the world is already rehearsing her dethroning. She stays on the clay to grind, watches 17-year-old Steffi Graf’s surge, and admits the chase is real. Then comes the detail that says everything: Martina starts experimenting with the exact Dunlop model Graf uses—trying a Max 200G in Rome, and arriving in Paris with a black-painted version that fools no one. This bonus episode is a tense prologue to Roland Garros 1987: the reigning queen feeling the heat, rewriting her own habits, and reaching for the future’s weapon, just to try and hold onto the present.