Seles Keeps Going Strong

Monica Seles started it, or at the very least, took it to the next level. There was the hard hitting, grunting and the ever-changing hairstyles. And, of course, there was the dog as fashion accessory.

She often had a tiny Yorkshire terrier at tournaments. Now there are puppies everywhere on the tour. There was Elena Dementieva’s mother and coach, Vera, standing on the practice court the other day holding their Yorkshire in her arms. Elena calls him: “Patrick.” And no, he is not named after Patrick Rafter.

Seles got this all going, and now, at 27, she is starting another trend.

The successful comeback.

Seles is 8-2 since returning to the tour after missing the French Open and Wimbledon because of an injured foot. She reached the semifinals at Palo Alto, losing to Lindsay Davenport and made the final Sunday at Carlsbad, falling to Venus Williams. Seles played some of her best tennis in years in the latter event, beating Jennifer Capriati and Martina Hingis in consecutive rounds.

This comeback stuff is never easy. Seles is going to have some highs and lows--and Thursday was somewhere in between at the Estyle.com Classic at the Manhattan Country Club. The sixth-seeded Seles started sluggishly, and was within two points of losing against No. 10 Sandrine Testud of France.

Somehow, Seles summoned the necessary energy and withstood Testud’s 11 aces, winning the round of 16 match, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4, in 2 hours 10 minutes. She defeated Testud for the seventh consecutive time but many of their matches have been close.

“She and I always play these marathon matches,” Seles said. “We have similar styles of game, and both of us are huge competitors. We bring it out in each other, these long matches. We both gave our hearts out there. It came down to one or two points out there.”

Tonight, in the quarterfinals, Seles will play two-time defending champion Serena Williams. In other round of 16 matches, No. 3 Kim Clijsters of Belgium defeated Alicia Molik of Australia, 7-6 (3), 6-3; No. 5 Nathalie Tauziat of France beat Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia, 6-0, 0-6, 6-2; and No. 7 Dementieva of Russia defeated wild-card entry Virginie Razzano of France, 6-4, 6-4.

It was Dementieva’s first match in the tournament because she received a first-round bye and an injury walkover in the second round. In other matches, No. 12 Amy Frazier beat lucky loser Wynne Prakusya of Indonesia, 7-5, 6-3. Second-seeded Lindsay Davenport had little trouble in the night match, defeating 18-year-old Daja Bedanova of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-3, in 62 minutes.

Davenport was asked if her recent ups and downs had anything to do with her many years on the tour.

“I feel I’ve been going through lapses in my matches,” she said. “I don’t think that’s due to my age.”

The strangest match was between Tauziat and Dokic. Tauziat took a 5-0 lead within nine minutes. Dokic went on a run in the second and Tauziat was the one who had to pull herself together for the final set.

“The hardest thing to do is win 6-0, 6-0. Jelena is a big fighter,” Tauziat said.

The same could be said about Testud. She was within two points of beating Seles in the 10th game of the second set and again in the tiebreaker. Testud led, 5-4, in the tiebreaker and lost the next three points.

“Not playing for five, six months and now playing every week, it caught up with me a little bit today,” Seles said.

Testud looked despondent in the interview room and hung her head.

“Very disappointed,” Testud said. “I’ve played great the last two weeks. I lost 7-6 in the third [to Davenport] and I lose today, 7-5, in the third. I don’t know what I have to do.”

For Seles, the recent success has not stopped questions about her future, though a few titles might quell retirement talk.

“I really don’t know,” she said. “I’m sure I could wake up tomorrow and say, ‘I’m stopping.’ That might happen, I don’t know. But just let me play. I think the last four years of my career, I’ve been asked that every day. I have no idea.”