Although Zvereva was a highly accomplished doubles player, and considered by some to be one of the best doubles players of all time, she had limited success in singles. Nevertheless, in 1988, at the age of 17, she made her sole Grand Slam singles final at the French Open beating Martina Navratilova en route. In a highly publicized final, she lost to Steffi Graf 0–6, 0–6 in only 34 minutes. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes, however just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. This was the shortest and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever. (Graf went on to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal that year.)