It Looks So Easy for Seles

MELBOURNE, Australia —  All smiles one moment, crying the next, a still-fragile Monica Seles broke down after winning her fourth Australian Open as she thought back to the stabbing that nearly ended her career.

Three years after she won her last Grand Slam title on the same Center Court, Seles claimed her ninth major championship Saturday with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Germany’s Anke Huber.

Seles had to overcome a plethora of recent injuries and illnesses as well as the physical and psychological scars left from the knife attack in Hamburg, Germany, on April 30, 1993--a few months after taking her third consecutive Australian Open.

“In 1993, I left this tournament with such a special memory,” the 22-year-old Seles said, recalling a time when she played her finest tennis. “Coming back here in 1996 and doing so well in this first try has been very emotional for me.”

She said that when she held the trophy three years ago, she thought, “I’m going going to hold it in ’94.” But that year and the next passed in therapy, “and now in ’96 holding it again is very special.”

Seles, who won $380,000, giggled and laughed as she always did--until she was asked about returning to Hamburg. Then the memories flooded back, along with the tears, and she had trouble going on talking.

“It’s very hard to go back and feel safe again,” she said.

“Whatever happened there has not been fair,” she added, referring to the fact that her assailant served no time in jail.

Seles paused as she tried to stop crying, but couldn’t go on. She broke off the news conference and fled the stadium with her parents, leaving her trophy behind.

It was a sad and unfortunate ending to a glorious afternoon of triumph for her, one that marked a huge step in her recovery from the nightmare of Hamburg and the problems that have plagued her more recently.

She couldn’t serve as fast as she had before she strained her left shoulder lifting weights a few days ago, and she couldn’t cover the court the way she did before she pulled a groin muscle coming into the tournament.

“My shoulder was my main concern,” Seles said, “because I haven’t been able to serve the last four days.”

The shoulder injury, Seles said, kept her from winning “free points” on her serve. “My shoulder just scared me so much.”

She hit more lunging one-handed shots in desperation than she ever had, but once again she found a way to win--as she has in all the 28 matches she’s played in this championship since 1991.

“I cannot believe, still, that I’m here,” Seles told the crowd. Her father and coach, Karolji, wiped tears from his eyes in his courtside seat as he listened to her.

Her performance justified her status as co-No. 1 with Steffi Graf, absent while she recovers from foot surgery. Seles’ only loss since launching her comeback last August came against Graf in a three-set U.S. Open final.

“I think right now, Steffi is the best,” Seles said. ‘I would definitely have liked Steffi to be here, but then Steffi played a lot of Grand Slams when I wasn’t there.”

Graf won six of her 18 Grand Slam titles while Seles was out.

Huber, playing in her first major final and winning $190,000, started out strongly, breaking Seles and grabbing a 3-2 lead, but she couldn’t cope with the steady drumbeat of deep groundstrokes Seles pounded.

Seles immediately evened the first set, 3-3, by breaking Huber’s serve and spirit after nine deuces in a 14-minute game.

“I was thinking toward the end that this is probably the longest game I’d ever played,” Seles said. “And that’s usually not a good thought while you’re playing a game like that.”

Seles spotted Huber’s weakness--forehands that she kept slugging long or into the net--and attacked it. Huber contributed to her own downfall, double-faulting for the third time to start the 10th game of the set, clubbing a forehand wide to go to a second break-point, and missing an easy forehand when she had an open court.

That last shot of the set by Huber clipped the net cord, popped up and fell back, and the 21-year-old German stared at it in disgust as she dropped her racket.

Seles cruised as easily through the second set as she had in nearly all her matches. The only set she lost in the tournament was in the semifinals against Chanda Rubin, a match that was more worthy of a final than this one.

“After the first set,” Huber said, “she played very, very well and just didn’t miss anything anymore. I was trying, but everything went too quick.”

Seles’ victory over Huber, her seventh without a loss against her going back to the 1991 Australian Open, was more predictable than the weather. Rain threatened as gray clouds hovered above the stadium, but held off long enough for the match to be completed.

A giant picture of Seles covered a wall across the Yarra River from the National Tennis Center, and the message it carried was “Two Streaks Are Better Than One.”

Seles had a brilliant streak going when she left tennis, and she started one again with a title in Sydney and one more Australian championship.

“In the U.S. Open, I came close,” Seles said. “It’s very good to know I can still do it.”