==========================================
RIVER OAKS INTERNATIONAL TENNIS TOURNAMENT
(Houston, Texas, USA; clay; exhibition)
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http://www.riveroaksinternational.com/

+ Monica Seles [EF] d. Martina Navrátilová, 7-6 (7/1) 2-6 [10/1].

(The Houston Chronicle misprinted the score as 6-7 6-2 [10/1]
according to Ronny & James <http://www.monicaselessite.com/> who were
actually there.)

A lot of people have been talking about Monica as though she's done.
They say that even if she does come back, she'll be losing to
nonentities. I don't know anyone who's won nine Grand Slams and had
so many doubters in their lives.

But if there's been one recurring theme in women's tennis in the last
12 years, it's that class is permanent, and great champions can still
come back and be a threat to everybody (e.g. Monica herself in 1995,
Jennifer Capriati in 2001, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters in 2005,
and Serena Williams in 2007).

Monica's not going to come back and lose to nonentities. She's going
to come back and dominate. It might only be for five tournaments (as
per the Houston Chronicle article), but even that would be enough to
match Pete Sampras's tally of 14 Grand Slam titles. And I do think
Monica might consider playing only the Grand Slams, if she thinks
that her left foot won't stand for a full WTA Tour schedule (excuse
the pun).

She seems to be prioritising the Slams she's already won (the French,
US and Australian Opens), but I crave her first Wimbledon-title like
oxygen. It's been an awful long wait for something that once seemed
so certain, but I would die a happy man if she could finally complete
a Career Grand Slam, and silence all the haters who say that you
can't be considered an all-time great unless you've won Wimbledon.

But Monica will always be the greatest tennis-player of all time,
regardless of whether she wins Wimbledon, because of the following
three facts combined:

1. She had already won 8 Grand Slams by the age of 19y 2m (Australian
Open 1993), and was winning them at a rate of 3 a year.

2. On 30th April 1993, she was stabbed in the back at a changeover by
a man who couldn't bear the thought of Monica usurping Steffi Graf
(who, at the time of the Stabbing, had won 11 Grand Slams by the age
of 23, and was ranked #2 behind Monica).

3. Monica came back in mid-1995, winning her first WTA tournament (a
Tier I) for the loss of 14 games in 5 matches, coming within an
overruled ace of winning the US Open 1995, and actually winning the
Australian Open 1996 for her 9th Grand Slam.

Sure, Monica may not have won a Grand Slam since the Australian Open
1996, owing to a series of injuries, the death of her father after a
5-year battle with cancer, and of course much stronger competition as
the new generation of power-players that she herself had inspired
with her hard, flat, early groundstrokes emerged. But nothing can
ever tarnish her legacy.

------
Photos
------

Monica playing her exhibition:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/4692747.html

Off-court at River Oaks:
http://www.monicaselessite.com/home.html

Monica at the Laureus Awards:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2qkktj
http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?c=news_photos&p=seles
http://isifa.com/result_ed.php?search_id=1083685
http://www.aapimage.com.au/search.aspx?Search=seles
Search Getty Images for "seles"

Monica gets better with age, like an old bottle of Cherry Coke (I am
a teetotaller, so I mean that as a huge compliment). Having often
been accused of being overweight in 1994-2003, if anything she's gone
the other way - her arms look very thin. But she certainly has
gorgeous collarbones.

When I became a Monica-fan (and tennis-fan) back in 1992, it was all
about the tennis for me. But now I find Monica more attractive than
when she was in her teens and tweens, and more attractive than any
other woman over 30 (a status Iva Majoli attains on 12th August 2007).

-----
Video
-----

Monica's return to the WTA Tour at Toronto 1995 - Seles v Po:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32WCzc7QLYA

-----------------------------
The Houston Chronicle article
-----------------------------

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/4692747.html
>>>
Monica Seles has had a great run in tennis, and she wants to go out
on her own terms
Driven by love of game

By DALE ROBERTSON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Monica Seles does not look back with anger or remorse, only with
occasional regret. And Seles' regret is tempered by two truths, that
she was a victim of bad luck, not bad behaviour, and that her life
has been almost incomprehensively wonderful.

Yes, she got stabbed in the back in the middle of a match, derailing
a career that might have broken all the records. Yes, a chronic foot
problem, resulting in two operations, has made these last few years
frequently hellish while prolonging her official tennis swansong. But
there is no hint of bitterness when she speaks.

"I had terrible luck, that's true," Seles said. "What happened to me
has never happened to any [athlete]. But what happened was beyond my
control. I didn't do anything wrong. Even the foot... it just
happened. I'd be lying if I didn't say there were a lot of bad days,
but I've always tried to roll with it and stay positive."

Seles, 33, misses competitive tennis, and that as much as anything
explains this long goodbye. Almost four years after her last Tour
match, a first-round loss at the French Open, she remains unretired.


Taking on Navrátilová

That's why she played Martina Navrátilová at River Oaks on Thursday.
The exhibition, which Seles won 7-6 (7/1) 2-6 [10/1], served as the
first step to determining the when, the where and the why of the last
step.

"My personal theory is: if you're retired, you're retired," Seles
said. "You don't come back. And I don't feel like I'm ready to say
that. I'm in such good shape. I only wish I was in this good a shape
when I was playing. It's hard to accept that, just because of an
injury, you're finished."

Seles dreams of playing the French Open again. The Australian and US
Opens, too, if not Wimbledon.

She believes she has maybe five tournaments left in her reconstructed
foot and, she said, "I want to make sure I'm fully prepared. The
tournaments I played injured were the worst times of my life. I told
myself I'd never do that again."

Wear and tear had caused a bone in the bottom of her foot to
disintegrate, causing pain.

"The last three years have been so frustrating," Seles said. "For me,
it's so simple. I just love to play tennis. Anyone that's been close
to me can see the ups and downs I've been through, feeling that it's
going to be OK, then being very disappointed and down all over again.
I could write a book on rehab.

"Finally in December, when I started hitting again, I thought, 'Hey,
this is feeling pretty good.' I still have to be very cautious, to
take every other day off, but I called Martina and said [playing an
exhibition] would be really fun. I told her, 'I know you're done, but
I'm not really sure I am.'"

Navrátilová sort of owed her. When she was coming out of retirement
again a couple of years ago, she had recruited Seles for a pair of
matches in New Zealand, winning both. Back in the day, as Seles was
coming up and Navrátilová was going down, they squared off 17 times
in less than four years. Seles won 10, including the 1991 US Open
final, and a Wimbledon semi-final in 1992.

Navrátilová's career would become the antithesis of Seles'
interrupted one, enduring and fruitful. Seles has been forced to
settle with fruitful.

"What happened to Monica," Navrátilová said, "was ludicrous, so
unfair."

Seles collected nine Grand Slam titles, eight of them before she
turned 20 — and seven of the last eight she contested before being
stabbed in the back by an unemployed Steffi Graf-obsessed lathe
operator in Hamburg 14 years ago this month. With Seles gone from the
tour for the subsequent 2˝ years, Graf collected six of her record 21
majors, three more than Navrátilová's total.

There are plenty of players like Seles. She invented a genre. Her two-
fisted power-game from the deep backcourt, accompanied by a guttural
symphony of grunts, moans and shrieks, foretold where women's tennis
was headed.


Beating an idol

But she would prefer to write the final chapter. And, if that's going
to happen, it will have started in Houston, where the story began.
In 1989, Seles, then 15, beat Chris Evert at Westside Tennis Club to
claim the first of her 53 WTA titles. She remembers every detail.

"You're 15 years old, you've watched Chrissie who is kind of your
idol, and suddenly you're across the net from her," Seles said. "I'd
lost to her pretty bad a couple months before in Boca Raton and, to
just actually win a tournament, against Chrissie, that was amazing.

"Growing up, everybody says, 'Oh, Monica is going to be great, blah,
blah, blah.' But, until it happens, you never really know. As a
player, you have doubts. [Beating Evert] was almost a validation. I
said I don't care if I ever win another tournament. At least I won
one. I'll never forget taking that big [cardboard] cheque they used
to give you in the old days onto the airplane with me. I still have
it somewhere. It was for more money than I'd ever seen — $50,000.
How could I forget that?"
<<<

-------------------
Quotes about Monica
-------------------

Serena Williams mentioned Monica in her fourth-round press-conference
at Miami:

"Well, what happened to Monica was awful, but ever since then the
security has been extremely tight, and every year it gets more tight
and more tight."


Shahar Pe'er mentioned Monica in an interview in the January/February
2007 issue of British tennis-magazine _Ace_:

"I used to like Monica Seles very much. She was always very
aggressive on the court. Some people say I look a bit like Monica. An
Israeli newspaper once put a picture of me next to a picture of
Monica and said we looked the same."

-------------------------------------------------------------------
All-time youngest players to win a WTA Tour singles main-draw match
-------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Mary Joe Fernández - 13y 6m - 1985 Miami
2. Jennifer Capriati - 13y 11m - 1990 Boca Raton
3. Steffi Graf - 13y 11m 10d - 1983 Roland Garros
4. Martina Hingis - 14y 1w - 1994 Zürich
5. Kathy Rinaldi - 14y 3w - 1981 Amelia Island
6. Tracy Austin - 14y 1m - 1977 Portland
7. Michelle Larcher de Brito - 14y 1m 3w - 2007 Miami
8. Stephanie Rehe - 14y 2m - 1984 Hershey
9. Gabriela Sabatini - 14y 2m 2w - 1984 Indianapolis
10. Monica Seles - 14y 3m - 1988 Boca Raton

So Monica was the seventh-youngest at the time that she did it.

--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/tennis/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/tennis/seles/ (added 1 external link)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/selesians/