HARRISON, N.Y. -- Even as a newborn, Monica Yajima and tennis were a
match.

The Greenwich girl was named after Monica Seles, once the No. 1
tennis player in the world. Living up to her name, Yajima first
picked up a racket when she was 4 and entered her first tournament at
the age of 8.

Now 12, Monica is moving up in the national rankings. "I think I've
always had a tennis ball and a tennis racket in my hand," said
Monica, a shy and soft-spoken girl who will enter seventh grade at
Central Middle School later this month. "I just started playing and I
started to like it more. I improved in it and I decided that's what I
wanted to do."

As on most summer days, Monica trained at the Willow Ridge Country
Club in Harrison, N.Y., yesterday morning, drilling forehands,
backhands and volleys with her coach for an hour before playing a set
with one of the club's pros. She is less than five feet tall and
weighs about 80 pounds, but has the endurance to play three-set
matches and the strength to nail winners from the baseline.

"I just enjoy it a lot," said Monica, who named Belgium's Justine
Henin-Hardenne, currently the world's top player, as her
favorite. "You can be to yourself, you don't have a team. You can't
blame anyone but yourself so you can improve all on your own."

Monica said she is currently ranked 31st in the nation by the United
States Tennis Association in the girls 12 and under category, but
expects her ranking to reach the top 20 when the results of two
recent tournaments are calculated. Earlier this month, she reached
the finals of a tournament in Cincinnati and then lost in the finals
of the consolation draw at a tournament in Kentucky.

Coach Steven Benjamin said Monica has moved up from being ranked
195th in the nation in January, improving her shots and her fitness
level.

"Now, I would say her strokes are picture perfect," he said.

Monica's father, who died of cancer when she was only 11Ž2, was a
professional tennis player in his native Japan before he moved to the
United States, where he coached at many clubs in the tri-state area
and once won the Greenwich Town Tennis Tournament, said Monica's
mother, Rino Yajima. The couple decided to name their only daughter
after Seles, a native of the former Yugoslavia who is known for her
mental toughness in the sport.

"At that time, Monica Seles was No. 1 and I'm not sure (if my
daughter was) going to be good at tennis -- maybe she wanted to do
something else -- but . . . I wanted her to be a strong girl," said
Yajima, 40, a dental assistant.

Monica, an honors student who has a junior black belt in karate, said
she will play tennis in the afternoons once school starts and travel
to the Bronx, N.Y., with her mother in the winter to practice
indoors. On rainy days, she sometimes uses a tennis ball attached to
a stand to hit some shots in her driveway.

Monica said she is not sure if she will have time to attend the
upcoming U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., but hopes to be there
one day as a professional tennis player.

"I obviously want to play in Grand Slams and the Olympics," she said.