TENNIS / WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT AT MANHATTAN BEACH : Seles Silent but Deadly for Habsudova, 6-2, 6-2

It was the still of the night. Monica Seles played her first match since Wimbledon, a second-round encounter Tuesday at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, and Seles won her match soundly.

Better make that quietly.

Seles power-stroked her way past 19-year-old Karina Habsudova of Czechoslovakia, 6-2, 6-2, in 61 minutes at Manhattan Country Club, where the only sound coming from Seles occurred as she deflated tennis balls by striking them with her racket.

Call it the silence of the slams.

This seemed like something of an upset. After submitting quietly to Graf in a disappointing Wimbledon final, where Seles’ grunting became a news item second in importance only to the royal couple on the skids, speculation became intense on how Seles would act on her return to the court.

Seles was quiet from the first point on. For the anti-grunters, no noise was good news, but Seles didn’t commit to a vow of silence from now on.

“I don’t know,” she said in her post-match interview, wearing a white baseball cap and gray sweatshirt. “I got a lot of letters after Wimbledon that said, ‘Monica, you got to grunt again.’

“If I do, that’s great, if I don’t, that’s also great. I don’t want to make an issue out of it any more. I’ve never done it on purpose.”

With that, Seles hopes the grunting issue will quietly fade away. That may be wishful thinking, but the way she played against Habsudova, the 1991 U.S. Open Junior champion, might have opened the door for a new question. Can she play better?

Apparently, Seles thinks so. As soon as she finished shaking hands with Habsudova, Seles was on the practice court hitting balls.

She said she had trouble with the lights, especially on her toss, but if it was dark out there, it was also quiet.

In any event, Seles indicated the whole grunting issue might be connected to her ranking as the burden a No. 1 player carries.

“People say they’ll try to gun you down and say things,” she said. “I’ve never thought I’d read and hear so many things about me that are not true. That’s hard. But when I go on the court, I’m not going to lose just to not be No. 1 any more.”

Amy Frazier, ranked No. 18, had as much trouble beating No. 377-ranked Lisa Raymond as she does choosing what color tennis clothes to wear. For her first-round match, it was red skirt and shirt, red ribbon, red trimmed socks and a 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), victory over Raymond, the NCAA singles champion, a sophomore at University of Florida.

Actually, it was another color-coordinated victory for Frazier, who last spring began wearing distinctively hued ensembles--and earrings--and seems close to perfecting her habit.

Besides red, the other colors in Frazier’s closet are navy blue, pink, turquoise and white. Frazier said she doesn’t have a favorite--only the one she’s wearing when her forehand goes in.

Tennis Notes

Monica Seles, Martina Navratilova, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Pam Shriver and Zina Garrison will donate signed rackets to be auctioned tonight after the Navratilova’s match with Alexia Dechaume to benefit the Messiah Baptist Church.