TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : Seles Is Growing in Status and Stature

It figures that Monica Seles would be the daughter of a cartoonist. This 16-year-old, who laughs like Woody Woodpecker, named her dog Astro after the one on the “Jetsons” cartoon show and learned to punch two-fisted forehands at practices when her dad, Karolj, drew cartoon faces on the balls.

For Seles, this made tennis fun and simple: “First I would hit Tom and then I would hit Jerry,” she said.

And now, Seles has hit No. 4 in the Virginia Slims rankings, behind Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who took over No. 3 from Seles after reaching the final last week in Hamburg, West Germany. That means Seles has moved within reach of No. 1 Steffi Graf and No. 2 Martina Navratilova barely a year after her first professional victory.

Seles, animated with a giggle and a grunt, probably won’t be able to leapfrog Graf or Navratilova this year, but she came into the Italian Open playing the best tennis of her career. She won her last three tournaments--the Lipton International Players Championship, the U.S. Hardcourts and the Eckerd Open--and did not drop a set.

She beat Helen Kelesi, 6-1, 6-2, in the Italian Open semifinals Saturday and will play in today’s final against Navratilova.

Seles burst upon the scene last April by beating Chris Evert to win at Houston in only her second professional tournament. She was ranked No. 88 and then reached the semifinals of the French Open before losing to Graf in three tough sets. Seles may have taken something out of Graf, who was upset by Sanchez Vicario in the final two days later.

If Seles gets another shot at Graf in Paris next month, she’ll be ready.

“When I played Steffi three sets and I saw how close I was, and then after Arantxa beat her in the final, there is no question in my mind that she’s not unbeatable,” Seles said. “She’s a person like I am. You know, she’s stronger than I am . . . but it isn’t like she’s the unstoppable one, the incredible one.”

In the year since Paris, Seles has made a few changes in the way she does business. Some have not been voluntary. As expected, she bolted Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla., turned to Karolj to coach her and began looking for a new home. Boca Raton, Fla., has been mentioned.

There have been other changes, too. Seles is still growing, however reluctantly. She was 5-feet-6 a year ago and now measures 5-9 1/2. She said doctors have told her she eventually will grow to 6 feet.

“I’d rather not be 6 feet,” she said, “but what can I do? God made me that way.”

Seles thinks that such a height would hurt her on the slow surfaces, and she is already discovering that changes must be made in her game. For instance, she must bend her knees more to get low on her groundstrokes. On the other hand, Seles is benefiting from a bigger serve, helped along by her new-found height advantage.

“When I look back at the pictures of when I played the French Open, I look like a little girl,” she said.

“When I was 12, everybody thought I was going to stay 5-4, but my feet are very big. They are size 10 now. So I grow. I don’t know about the feet. They’d better not. It’s already pretty big trouble to find some new shoes now.”

When the year began, Seles was thinking about trying to find a new shoulder. She injured her shoulder by playing an exhibition even though it already was hurting her. Not willing to sit out long enough to let it heal, Seles came back too soon and wound up losing in the first round at Chicago and getting just three games from Navratilova in the semifinals at Washington.

She is perfectly fine, now, Seles insisted, and plans to focus the rest of the year on protecting her ranking instead of trying to overtake the two players in front of her.

“That way, I wouldn’t have again a big pressure for next year,” Seles said. “A year ago, I was at No. 88, so in one year to come down to No. 3 (now No. 4), I mean I wouldn’t have ever believed it. So it was a little hard to accept it, but what I try to do is just go out each time and play my best, like I did last year, to have no pressure on myself.

“The worst thing that can happen is to lose. I mean, it’s not the end of the world. That helps a lot.”

And as for becoming No. 1? Give her some time, Seles said.

“Nobody knows when I will be No. 1 or if I ever will be,” she said. “I still would possibly (myself) give three to four years (to be No. 1). With Steffi pretty much winning every tournament, I would have to do that. It’s not that easy.”

Teen Team: Seles said she is not surprised that 14-year-old Jennifer Capriati has made such a sudden impact on the tour, and that the two of them represent a turnover of youth.

“Like Jennifer and I hit the ball a lot harder than anybody did before--Steffi is there too,” Seles said. “It’s just that I think a lot of the players, the old ones, were in for many years and maybe are just getting a little tired. I mean, it’s tough.

“And we are hitting the ball a lot harder, so I think for them to prepare, it’s a little different. The game is a lot faster in 1990 than it was in the 1980s, I think.”

38 at 37: Sore-wristed Jimmy Connors has played only one match this year, and that was more than three months ago. The 37-year-old left-hander is all the way down to No. 38 in the rankings. However, the winner of 109 tournaments is looking at a heavy schedule after Wimbledon, according to his agent.

“As soon as he gets healthy, he plans to play a ton of tennis,” said Jeff Austin of Advantage International. “But his wrist has got to heal.”

Connors lost to West German Markus Zoecke on Feb. 6 in the first round at Milan, Italy, citing a wrist injury as the cause for his defeat. He hasn’t played since. Connors signed with NBC to do television commentary at the French Open and Wimbledon instead of playing.

Austin said Connors is scheduled to return to the tour the week of July 9 in Europe and play three consecutive weeks, including subsequent tournaments in Washington and Toronto. After a week off during the Volvo/Los Angeles event, Connors plans to play in Indianapolis; New Haven, Conn.; the U.S. Open; Basel, Switzerland, and Toulouse, France.

“It’s not like he’s an old guy who’s disappeared,” Austin said.

Cash back: Pat Cash, the 1987 Wimbledon champion, who has been sidelined by injuries for most of the last two years, hopes to get a wild-card entry to Wimbledon. Assuming that he will, Cash, 24, is entering two grass court exhibitions in England before the big show.

He will play at Beckenham June 4-10 and at Wentworth June 20-23. Ivan Lendl is playing at Beckenham and skipping the French Open to concentrate on Wimbledon, which he has never won.

Attention, IRS: At Wimbledon, prize money has been increased nearly 25% to $6.3 million.

The men’s singles champion will receive $375,000. Boris Becker collected $309,800 in 1989 when he won his third Wimbledon title. The women’s champion will earn $337,400, a raise of $58,700 from last year.

John Curry, new chairman of the All England Club, told Reuters that it is important for Wimbledon to maintain prize money at a level in keeping with the stature of the tournament.

Tennis Notes

The second Youth vs. Experience tennis tournament will be played at 10 a.m. next Sunday at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. Bob Howe, Alex Olmedo, Vladamir Petrovic, Whitney Reed, Ted Schroeder and Vic Seixas are among the past champions in the 55-85 age range who have been invited to compete against junior champion boys in the 10, 12 and 14 divisions. Senior women who have been invited to compete are Dodo Cheney, Vilma Gordon, Eleanor Harbula, Charleen Hillebrand, Corky Murdock, Jacqueline Piatigorsky, Jane Willens and Dee Williams-Horn.

The U.S. Tennis Assn./Volvo Tennis League, a national adult recreational program, is under way in Southern California for men and women 19 or older playing on teams according to their skill level. League champions will advance to sectional playoffs at Los Caballeros Sports Village in Fountain Valley. The national finals will be held in October at three sites. Last year, three of the 12 national championship teams were from Southern California.

Thomas Muster, who reached his seventh final of the year but lost to Karel Novacek at Munich, withdrew from the German Open at Hamburg after feeling some pain in his elbow. Muster, ranked No. 16, said he will play in the Italian Open that begins Monday in Rome and then play for Austria in the World Team Cup special event at Dusseldorf before entering the French Open . . . John Fielding, coach of the SMU women’s team, resigned to become the full-time coach of pro player Richey Reneberg. Fielding was an assistant coach on the SMU men’s team when Reneberg was a Mustang All-American in 1985-87.

Ed Tapscott, basketball coach at American University in Washington for eight years, has joined Advantage International as director of team sports. . . . Former UCLA player Brian Garrow has found a new doubles partner to replace fellow Bruin Pat Galbraith, on the IBM/ATP Tour. Garrow, playing on the Challenger circuit, teamed with Sven Salumaa to win the doubles title of the Banespa Open in Rio de Janeiro. Garrow, who lost to Andrew Snajder in the semifinals at Rio after coming through qualifying, is ranked No. 113 in singles.