Steffi Graf Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin. Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had had menstrual cramps in the
Steffi Graf to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal.