THE LIPTON CHAMPIONSHIPS

March 21, 1997

Monica Seles

MONICA SELES: It's doing okay. I started practicing about two weeks ago. It's fine. There's no pain; just a little bit if I'm turning fast. That's about it.

MONICA SELES: My shoulder is great. It's been really doing great the last four, five months, so. I'm happy I don't have to have the surgery.

MONICA SELES: Obviously when it happened, yeah. They found it was broken in two places. It just was all messed up. It definitely took much longer than I thought. I thought I would be off for six weeks, max.

MONICA SELES: I was really nervous today because I haven't played a match pretty, pretty much a full match, since I lost to Martina in San Francisco. I didn't get a chance to practice so much. I didn't feel that confident going into the match. That's about it. Waiting around all day, that made me even more nervous because I'm just thinking, had a lot of time to think about the match. I played Naoko tons of times, knew her game, all those things.

MONICA SELES: Martina is great. She's not only great on the court, but off the court she seems to have a great balance. What's she's achieving is quite unbelievable to become No. 1. It's just awesome.

MONICA SELES: I don't think on her way that's hard, because that's not her personality, at least now. You never know, she's a teenager. Right now she's just having a great time. That's the most important. She's also playing some awesome tennis.

MONICA SELES: I think for the Tour it would be really nice if there were a way to bring back Gaby and Kimiko, have them around, but we also have great new players coming up: Anna, Venus, Martina. The depth of women's tennis in the last couple years has really grown a lot. I think the future is bright for it.

MONICA SELES: Well, I think just to keep practicing, trying to get back the balance consistency. Obviously not playing for three, four months, that's really my main focus. Try to play quite a few tournaments to get match toughness, because today I clearly didn't have that.

MONICA SELES: I think it's part of the process. I think not playing for a long time, obviously so many things happening, I didn't have a chance to even practice as little as I did before. So now, the next four or five weeks, I'm playing tournaments, I'll have time to focus on tennis, no distractions.

MONICA SELES: My groundstrokes. I mean, wow, they just collapsed on me. I mean, I was missing balls. It's windy out there, that's true, that's hard, but still.

MONICA SELES: I know when that rule was started, I'm not aware because I was off the Tour at that point. I don't know how, where is the loophole or whatever. It's very individual. I mean, look at Steffi and myself. We turned out great. I know Jennifer's case, people think it's different. I think she's trying to make a comeback, I think she's committed to it now. It's totally based on an individual basis and depends a lot on the parents or the coaches, support system around the players. Obviously, you're just a baby at that age.

MONICA SELES: That's tough. I mean, it's 50/50, I think.

MONICA SELES: The cumulative points?

MONICA SELES: Obviously it hurts lot if you don't play. For me, I dropped from 2 to 5. Last year if we would have had the other system, I still would have been 2. I think if you do well in Grand Slams, that part it's good because it does reward you for that. I think it demands a lot of tournaments to play, which obviously very few players up to this year have been able to play all of them they have been committed to play.

MONICA SELES: I mean, I had so many discussions with so many players back and forth. There's no system we're going to find that's going to be perfect for everybody. I really thought the other system was more fair. Here if you lose in the first round, it doesn't penalize you, and that shouldn't be the case.

MONICA SELES: I think it's hard because you play so many tournaments, likes Steffi did, in a row. Some top players, Steffi or Martina, are all perfectionists, they practice a lot. That's putting a lot of demands on your body over the years. Sooner or later you're going to have injuries. I think the only way to eliminate that is to have a longer off season. I think the WTA is trying to do that.

MONICA SELES: I really don't have that many memories from the stadium. The first time I saw the stadium was yesterday. I do remember it before. It was always one of my favorite tournaments. The people who are running the tournament have always been very supportive of me. They just kept in touch even when I was not playing tournaments. I'm really glad that finally I'm able to play it.

MONICA SELES: Yesterday?

MONICA SELES: That was a total accident. A guy I'm hitting with, Claudio, he isn't here, he has another player who was playing. They have this really weird way of saying hi, a dance. I was in the bathroom, didn't see it. I guess they thought that the guy was, I don't know, not okay. But he's a player, so he's fine. They've been really good.

MONICA SELES: I don't know. As I say, I was in the bathroom. I just heard it from two other people. That's the story I heard.

MONICA SELES: I've been hitting mostly with Claudio, that's pretty much it.

MONICA SELES: I was just getting so cold. I'm not used to playing in a dress. It was sticking to me. I was freezing, trying to keep moving. No injury, nothing.

MONICA SELES: I rested it and did quite a bit of rehab and a lot of stretching. For me it's a key to keep stretching and not over-serve. I mean, I didn't play the last three months much, but really had no pain.

MONICA SELES: Pretty much, yeah.

MONICA SELES: Tonight nothing.

MONICA SELES: No, nothing.

MONICA SELES: I think it was good. I would have been way longer off.

MONICA SELES: No, I haven't done anything, no (laughter). I mean, the one thing I was talking to somebody now, everybody is in great shape, stretching, all playing tennis, which five years ago wasn't the case. I'm a little bit late on that. I'm going to get on there. I really didn't do much, but play a lot the last two weeks.

MONICA SELES: Yeah. Well, I was trying to catch a ball, a hard serve ball. It just zoomed it back and broke it in two places, that was it (indicating).

MONICA SELES: It was a hard serve.

MONICA SELES: No. It was a hard serve. Martina.

MONICA SELES: Yes.

MONICA SELES: That's hard to just come off the top of my head. Anthropologist probably at this point, I'd really like to do that. As I say, that's really tough. I started playing tennis at age seven, so I was geared more towards that road.

MONICA SELES: Yes.

MONICA SELES: Where were we in Geneva? I don't know anymore. Yeah.

MONICA SELES: Pretty much. I mean, I was more worried today about my finger really. My shoulder has been okay. I think, I was telling myself to wake up a little bit in the second. I just told myself to take it a point at a time, it's really windy out there, move my feet, be a little patient, because not every day the balls are going to go in, so.

MONICA SELES: He's doing okay. Thank you for asking.

MONICA SELES: Thank you.