Monica Seles, now officially, finally retired, is obviously a lock for
the Tennis Hall of Fame.

She won nine Grand Slam singles titles - eight of them between 1991
and 1993. Gabriela Sabatini and her one U.S. Open title are already
ensconced.

But when I think of her, the only word that comes to mind is "sadness."

She had been such a breath of fresh air, a non-stop-talking teenager
who morphed into a competitive monster on the court. Her father,
Karolj, by tennis-father standards, seemed a nurturing, funny fellow.

It wasn't pretty, that two-handed groundstroking, grunting game of
hers. But it was impressive. The girl seemed fearless. She had pushed
longtime No. 1 Steffi Graf down to No. 2 for several years when
tragedy struck in Hamburg, Germany, in April, 1993.

I remember thinking the stab wound inflicted by deranged Graf fan
Gunther Parche (funny how that name remains in the memory) didn't seem
to be all that severe, by stab-wound standards. But Seles's innocence
and joy was lost that day. And she never got it back.

She was still only 22 when she returned to action at the Canadian Open
in Toronto nearly 21/2 years later. And she started her comeback in style.

I still remember her being surrounded by no fewer than eight beefy
bodyguards as she took centre court at York University. Despite
showing signs of rust, she beat American Kimberly Po 6-0, 6-3 and
started to roll.

The same day Seles made her return, Graf inexplicably lost to little
Amanda Coetzer of South Africa for the first time in her career, so
Seles had only to beat Coetzer for the title.

The inevitable first Seles-Graf clash came two weeks later, in the
U.S. Open final, an awkward situation for both players.

Seles said she hadn't heard from Graf after the stabbing. Graf said
she tried, but was unsuccessful. And Graf was dealing with demons of
her own: a wonky back, a father in jail for tax evasion.

Graf won. They played four more times after that, and she won three of
the meetings.

It was a great rivalry that couldn't be sustained. And that was
tennis's loss, because it wasn't exactly a stellar era.

Seles won the Australian Open in early 1996 (Graf didn't play) by
beating the likes of Naoko Sawamatsu, Iva Majoli, Chanda Rubin and
Anke Huber.

She had a couple of runner-up finishes in Grand Slams after that, but
settled into being a perennial quarter-finalist who would lose to the
emerging new stars: The Williams sisters, Justine Henin, Lindsay
Davenport.

In the meantime, her beloved father died, shortly before the 1998
French Open. That, too, seemed to take the starch out of her game.
Seles won tournaments every year through 2002, but they weren't major
events and she never beat major players to win them.

She had a few good wins - she beat Kim Clijsters, Henin and Venus
Williams in 2002, and beat both Serena Williams and Martina Hingis in
L.A. in 2001. But she was no longer a factor.

She was getting older. And her unathletic body had betrayed her long
before. As a stick-thin, 16-year-old calorie-burning machine, there
were never any issues. But as she filled out, mostly in the upper
body, she struggled to hit those two-handed strokes.

There didn't seem to be much of an effort to cut out the butter or hit
the gym. She carried a roll around her middle for most of the second
half of her career.

And then came a stress fracture in her foot - again, not something
that seemed career-threatening, but something that never healed. It
was the official reason for her retirement.

That there had been persistent whispers the last two years of her
making a comeback in her 30s was probably more wishful thinking than
anything else.

Off the court, Seles was always an enigma. She was really linked
publicly with only one man, billionaire Paul Allen, a man 20 years her
senior, in a relationship that may have been "just friends" but seemed
to last on-and-off for a decade.

At 34, she has never married or had children, and still lives in
sleepy Sarasota, Fla. She probably remains the sole support for her
mother Ester and perhaps even older brother Zoltan, who at one time
was her official guardian. She attended the U.S. Open last September,
quietly sitting in the stands, but for no apparent reason. It was
though she had absolutely nothing else to do.

The statement from agent Tony Godsick about her retirement talked
about an interest in architecture. But there was no indication she had
been studying the subject during all her down time the last five
years. As far as we know, she may not even have finished high school.

In so many ways, it's a life wasted. We know what Graf has gone on to
do, blissfully married to Andre Agassi, mother of two, involved in
charitable causes and business ventures. The woman who was so
unhappy-looking during her career is positively glowing these days.

Now that Seles has turned the page on her tortured tennis career,
let's hope she can find some fulfillment and get some of that glow for
herself.

If anyone deserves it, she does.