US OPEN

August 29, 1997

Monica Seles

Q. Monica, if you've been asked this before, what's the new stadium like? The atmosphere, the crowds, is it as raucous as the previous stadium?

MONICA SELES: I love the new stadium. I love the way the court is. Just the shape of it, I like the surface. I'm very happy with it. Feel very comfortable playing on it.

MONICA SELES: I'm pretty happy. I felt I played a good first-round match. And the second round, I never played her, never knew much about her, so I was surprised how well she actually played. Gave me a tough match. Today, a top player. I thought I would have had a much tougher match. I did have the answers to her shots at most of the key times. Although I lost that long game after the rain break, I was still able to hold the momentum in my favor.

MONICA SELES: I think probably since the comeback, I'd have to say I played really well in Toronto two years ago, and 1995 at the US Open. I would say probably those two.

MONICA SELES: Going into it, I didn't think I would play as much. But after I lost in San Francisco, I felt I needed some matches. I wasn't practicing as much. I felt this way I would have no choice, because I know my butt is going to be on the line. Just personality-wise I'm going to be out and practice. The past three or four weeks has been the most consistent tennis. I didn't want to be home. There's no one home. I felt, why not play some matches and have a little bit of consistency in my tennis career that way?

MONICA SELES: Definitely. I had to return really well. She was serving a lot of 105s. A lot of long points. A lot of games were 30-30. Usually the early rounds are more routine. Nowadays, not as routine as when I left The Tour.

MONICA SELES: It's so different. So many things changed since '95. But as I said before, I mean, for me it helped a lot the last few tournaments to have some consistency in terms of practice, get used to playing matches and the confidence that comes with playing matches. You can practice as much as you want, but it's different when it's a match and a pressure situation. A lot of times this year, I had trouble closing out matches like that. So I felt the answer to that is just to play more matches. And so that's what I tried to do. I really didn't plan that I'm going to play this many tournaments before the Open, that's for sure.

MONICA SELES: I think I just feel more comfortable when I step on the court. When you're not so sure where your balls are going to go, you don't feel as comfortable when you step out there. Now at least I feel that I worked hard and I feel I can control my shots. If I hit a great shot, I might not miss four other ones; it will maybe be 2-2, which before the ratio was even better. If I keep being consistent with my workouts, I can get back the ratio that Hingis has right now.

MONICA SELES: Well, it's been a hard summer because the first time I had to be without a coach. You talk to your dad on the phone about the match. It's not the same as him being in the locker room before the match, seeing the matches at Wimbledon. So it's been very hard. Mentally it's also been really hard. It was a long time being away from him. I just don't want to do that at that level again. So I talk to him a lot about it. I just need to find a balance, and that's what I'm going to try to do: play a lot of weeks in a row and take a lot of weeks off to be able to spend some time with him.

MONICA SELES: Oh, no, not yet. But I do think the new generation is a lot friendlier, more open. I feel that with Martina, with Anna, Mirjana. Those are the ones that I talk to. Much more happier. I think they have a little bit more of a balance than the prior generation. But I do think you always learn from the past players. They saw that something maybe didn't work, so they're trying to change it. But we have to wait five years. That's what we thought with a lot of them, when they were in their primes. Five years afterwards, that's a different story. Only time will tell, I think.

MONICA SELES: I think so. That's why I really love Martina. I came on The Tour, the air around the No. 1 players was really different. I really love what Martina is doing. She's normal. That has a lot to do with her age, no question. She'll talk to the 100th ranked player the same as she talks to the 4th ranked player in the world. Very few of the past champions when I was in the locker room had that. The players are younger. When I came on The Tour, Chris and Martina were just about to leave. There was a bigger age difference. It was harder to find anything in common. Right now, five or six years, one or two like with Iva, it's not a big difference. You have a lot more things in common to talk about.

MONICA SELES: No, no, never.

MONICA SELES: No.

MONICA SELES: I saw him in Atlanta. He came for two days on his way to the Mayo Clinic.

MONICA SELES: To the net?

MONICA SELES: Definitely. And I tried to do that a few times. After I won LA, I felt I had more confidence in Toronto a few times. In practices, too. In a match, like today in a Grand Slam, it's really tough. But in terms of the groundstrokes, definitely, it does help when you cut down the unforced errors because you feel so much more confident going for your big shots.

MONICA SELES: To me, it's just the initial getting there. I really feel every single person, starting from Billie Jean to Martina to everybody who played volleys, have done very well. I just think it's the hump of getting over it. Right now, I felt that my groundstrokes were not there, where they were before, so I felt I needed to get that back. But hopefully after the Open is over, when all these tournaments are coming, there's much less pressure, indoor season, hopefully I'll be able to do that.

MONICA SELES: Well, I pretty much try to go in every tournament, because I really don't believe you should be there if you don't believe that you can win it. That's not why I'm playing tennis. Lately, I think I look very similar to how I used to look before. But that was a while ago, so it's really hard to go back into that mind set.

MONICA SELES: It's okay.

MONICA SELES: A lot better. I don't have a temperature for the last five days, so that's been great. It's just that the cough is still coming out. I think my body hasn't had enough time to recover. Otherwise, no. Hopefully my energy will be fully back by Sunday.

MONICA SELES: Well, I think I do the best that I can. For me, the hardest is like when I go home and I need to talk about different issues, to try to turn that side off, this side off, back, on and off. Some days I'm really good at it; some days are really hard. I have a couple close friends that have helped me tremendously, my mom. I do my best. I try to separate at least during the Grand Slams, but sometimes that's not possible, like this week. That is my priority, my dad, for sure, over anything else.

MONICA SELES: One of them is Betsy Nagelsen, also a tennis player. We're both friends on and off the court. Her husband, too. Then I have a couple other friends from Sarasota, one of them is here, who have been very supportive.

MONICA SELES: Pretty much since Lipton, all this year.

MONICA SELES: The championships against Date.

MONICA SELES: Against Kimiko.

MONICA SELES: Yes.

MONICA SELES: I think it's different. Obviously you never know how much time you have with somebody. With Steffi's dad, it was a little different. She knew she would have a long time with him. It's hard for me. It's just time that you want to spend with the person really.