Seles works up fever to eclipse Venus
Monica Seles, a fever pounding her head as her opponent clumped down serves at up to 120mph, happily brought a feeling of deja vu, to say nothing of deja grunt, to the Australian Open yesterday when she defeated Venus Williams, the No2 seed, for the first time in seven meetings to reach tomorrow's women's semi-final against Martina Hingis.
Between them Seles and Hingis have won this title seven times, although for both of them the victories in Melbourne remain the last of their grand slam successes. Hingis, the third seed, has appeared in the past five finals, winning from 1997-1999. Seles, who also won on three consecutive occasions from 1991-1993, returned from the 1993 stabbing incident, and the psychological scars which threatened to end her career, to win for a fourth time by defeating Germany's Anke Huber in the 1996 final.
At the time it seemed that the Yugoslav-born American had completed her recuperation, but since 1996, and despite huge efforts in the face of injury and the death of her father, Seles has not won another major to add to her total of nine, which includes three French and two US Opens.
The groundswell of public support for the 28-year-old No8 seed is growing with every round, although it remains to be seen how much the 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Williams, herself troubled by hamstring problems, took out of her.
T S Eliot claimed that much of his best poetry was written when he was ill or in an out-of-body state, and Seles, hitting the lines with a consistency reminiscent of her glory days, played one of her finest tactical matches for many a long year while in the grip of a virus.
One of the keys is that she has been fit for the past eight months and has continued to work on her game out of a determination born of love. "I know that one day my professional career will be over," she said, "but I love this game and will always play it."
Many critics have pondered just how much the Williams sisters Venus and Serena care about tennis in the deepest sense, and not for the first tournament it was impossible to be sure here.
Serena pulled out with an ankle injury before the start and Venus has complained of tendinitis in her left knee throughout the event. Yesterday, when she called for a medical break at 4-4 in the first set, it was initially assumed that the problem had flared up again, but this time it was her right hamstring.
Between points she walked with a posture that was a cross between John Wayne and Donald Duck, but once the ball was in play there were no obvious problems, save for a tendency to struggle with her forehand. Seles, aware that an injured Williams can be every bit as dangerous as a fully fit one, concentrated on her own game and reaped the dividends.
Seles has been working hard to disguise her serve. Too often her variable ball toss has been a giveaway, enabling opponents to guess what was coming. But Williams could never be sure, and Seles dropped her serve only once, in the first set. "Monica deserved to win," said Williams. "Maybe she will win the title, and that will be an exciting story."
So it would, but first she has to overcome Hingis, who holds a 12-4 head-to-head career advantage. Seles has won their past two encounters, but those followed seven successive defeats, including the 1999 Australian Open semi-final, one of only two matches Seles has lost in this tournament, the other being last year's quarter-final against Jennifer Capriati, who beat Hingis in the final.
Hingis had a relatively comfortable 6-2, 6-3 quarter-final win over Italy's unseeded Adriana Serra-Zanetti to reach the last four. Now, with the Williams sisters and the injured Lindsay Davenport not around to block her path, she must be thinking that her luck has finally changed and that she might add to her previous five grand slam titles.
In the all-Swedish men's quarter-final, the 16th seed Thomas Johansson defeated Tim Henman's fourth-round conqueror Jonas Bjorkman 6-0, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 and will now meet Jiri Novak (No26) of the Czech Republic in the last four.
Novak, like Johansson, is in his first grand slam semi-final, after a rapid straight-sets victory over Austria's Stefan Koubek.