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The Umpteenth Comeback

© Michael Cecilio

It was the type of comeback that Monica Seles fans have been dreaming of for years. So many times throughout her career, the former world #1 has had to endure long layoffs from the professional tennis circuit for a multitude of reasons, most of them beyond her control. Of course, the biggest comeback of her career was when, after 27 months of nursing her physical and psychological wounds from the infamous stabbing incident in April 1993, she decided to return to competitive tennis – and succeeded. She won the prestigious Canadian Open in 1995 and followed it up reaching the US Open finals, an unbelievable feat given the ordeal she had been through and the amount of time it took for her to return to the game.

There have been comebacks galore throughout Monica’s career. Her momentous run in 1998 at Roland Garros was an emotional comeback following the recent death of her father and coach, Karolj, and she made it through to the championship match by beating Jana Novotna and Martina Hingis in back-to-back matches (to lose to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in the finals). However, many of her recent comebacks have been as a result of injury, namely the chronic stress fractures on her feet which have plagued her towards the end of 1999. She managed to comeback successfully in 2000 by winning her first tournament after a six-month layoff at Oklahoma City. Again, the stress fractures took their toll by the end of that season but put together a great run at the Chase Championships (another emotional event considering it was most probably the final WTA Championships of her career) by stretching Hingis to an epic three-set thriller in the finals.

Something had been lacking in her more recent comebacks from injury and it seemed to be the fitness factor. Many have harped on about how Monica could beat anyone on the tour, how she can hang with the best – if only she had that little ounce more of fitness to get over that hump. Perhaps as a result of the lack of fitness, or the result of continued losses to the top guns on the tour, her confidence had been severely dented against the best and she lost that mental edge which made her the undoubted queen of the WTA. She seemed to be able to beat the players ranked below her on a regular basis, but when it came to Hingis, Davenport and the Williamses, she just couldn’t find the answer to beating them. In fact, her last victory over one of the four had been almost three years ago in 1998 when Seles beat Hingis in the Canadian Open semi finals.

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