| |
Not just fun and games Seles tries to play around off-court battles
Posted: Tuesday May 25, 1999 02:05 PM
PARIS (AP) -- Off-court anguish seems to follow Monica Seles at the French Open. Last year, she fought her way to the final just three weeks after the death of her father. Now, she comes off court anxious for news of the bombing of her birthplace. Seles is reluctant to discuss events in Yugoslavia. But she can't hide her distress at the 3-month old NATO air bombardment, in particular the destruction of Novi Sad, her birthplace and the country's second-biggest city. "It is my hometown, where I was born. The last three months have been very difficult," Seles said Tuesday after advancing to the second round. "The only thing I can do is keep playing tennis and worry about the other stuff when I get off court," the former top-ranked player said. "I watch the news tons. I watch CNN and try to read a lot. Different stories from different sources, different sides." Seles, now an American citizen, moved to Germany in 1984 before settling in the United States two years later. She doesn't have family or friends in Yugoslavia, though her parents still have homes there. The current conflict, she says, "is too tough for me to talk about. It's just too personal. I don't want to share stories like that with the whole world." "I have to leave that to politicians because it is a very complicated issue. You just want peace. You don't want people dying on either side." Seles, 25, was a three-time French Open winner in the early 1990s before a horrific on-court stabbing in Germany put her out of tennis for more than a year. On Tuesday, she won her first-round match against China's Fang Li, 6-2, 6-4, in her quest for a 10th Grand Slam title. "I was really anxious to go out and play the match because it is my first match on clay this year," she said. "I was nervous having not played much, but I as pretty pleased with the way I played." Now Seles hopes for another long run at Roland Garros. "The ideal would be to play well in the first week and get some matches and peak in the second," she said. "But it's a long two-week event. I haven't had too many matches under my belt so I just want to focus on my next opponent." Seles posted respectable performances last year -- reaching the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Chase Championships, as well as losing to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in the French Open final. But she hasn't been happy with her Grand Slam form since winning the Australian Open in 1993, even though she was crowned champion in Melbourne three years later as well. "I have played a couple of great matches but not a whole tournament," she said. To make matters worse, Seles isn't having much luck with her health, having contracted bronchitis a month ago in the sweltering heat of her Florida home. "The first set of antibiotics didn't work at all," Seles said. "I had to take antibiotics for four weeks and am sure that takes a toll on the body."
| |||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
| |||||||||||||||||||||
