A VERY HAPPY RETURN

By Steve Wulf

The beautiful sounds of grunts, squeals and yelps filled Flushing Meadows this past fortnight, which meant only one thing: Monica Seles was back. At the U.S. Open, which was only her second tournament since returning from her 28-month physical and mental convalescence, the 21-year-old Seles was so impressive in her play and delightful in her presence that she instantly energized women's tennis. And together with Steffi Graf, she resumed one of the great rivalries in sports. Their final on Saturday, which Graf won 7-6 (8-6), 0-6, 6-3, went a long way toward erasing the memory of April 30, 1993, when Gunter Parche, a lunatic Graf fan, stabbed Seles in the back during a changeover at a tournament in Hamburg.

When the Graf-Seles match was over, the two rivals embraced as applause rained down on Stadium Court at the National Tennis Center in Queens, New York. "I want to thank you," Seles told the crowd. "This is one of the reasons I wanted to come back, to feel the electricity. Thank you, for all of you."

Seles was raised in Yugoslavia but has become a naturalized and quite natural U.S. citizen. She treated New York as her own personal wonderland during her stay, catching the Broadway shows How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Show Boat, standing on the sidelines of the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants football game at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, doing a bit on the MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall, painting the nails on one hand five different colors and signing a poster for Cal Ripken Jr. ("What wonderful blue eyes," she said of her sports co-star last week.) Seles even took the time to comfort Hungarian junior player Edit Pakay, 15, who was crying in the locker room after her defeat.

In the meantime, she seemed to conduct a seminar in How to Succeed in Tennis Without Really Trying. Until the match with Graf, she never lost a set, as her two-handed backhands and forehands kept the other women cornered. The only time she did not look particularly sharp was in the first set of her quarterfinal match with talented Czech Jana Novotna, but Seles erased two set points with a laser return of service and a dazzling forehand volley. "Well, I was just so mad at myself," she said of the first shot, "I just, wow, hit it." Reminded of the second shot, she said, "Very nice. Very good point. That one also. Yes, yes, yes, forgot that one." Peter Balestieri, the court stenographer employed by the U.S. Tennis Association, says Seles speaks 300 words a minute, while most of the rest of us speak 175. "Thank goodness for the giggle breaks," he says.

Novotna theorized, somewhat sourly, that the reason Seles has been able to come back so quickly is because she has a predominantly baseline game. "If she had an all-around game like Steffi's or mine, it would take her longer," said Novotna. Some observers feel Seles' instant success is an indictment of the quality of play on the women's tour. But Seles is only picking up where she left off. At 19, she had already won eight Grand Slam tournaments, and of the 10 she missed, Graf won six. During her sabbatical, Seles would watch highlights of the tournaments and cry.

Though the scar from the knife still tingles before it rains, Seles has made a full physical recovery. She has even grown an inch--to 5 ft., 10 1/2 in.--and that seems to have given her even more leverage. The psychological scars, of course, were much harder to get over. She spent countless hours with sports psychologist Jerry Russell May, but it was finally Mark McCormack, the head of the all-powerful International Management Group, who cajoled her out of her isolation. Of the stabbing, Seles says, "I've put the whole thing in a box. If I need to open it, I will, but I hope I don't have to."

Seles has grown in other ways. Her musical tastes went from Madonna to Hendrix. During her time off, she studied French and learned to shoot pool and play the guitar, even buying a Fender Stratocaster. She may have had another ax to grind. Seles is still annoyed at the way she was treated by her sisters on the tour. "They were supportive of me the day I was stabbed," she told the New York Times, "but by the next Monday in Rome they were already standing up to take my ranking away. Gabby [Gab riela] Sabatini was the only person who thought of me as a human being and not as a ranking position they wanted to grab."

Now that Seles is back in form, she can give the women professionals some lessons not only in tennis but in other things as well. "Everything about life is funny," she said when asked why she seemed so happy. "If you can't laugh at life, then why are you living?"

And you have to laugh at the way Seles has reclaimed her game and her life. When asked for a substitute for her favorite word, "wow!" Seles said, "I don't know. How about ecstatical?" Sounds good.

--With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York

With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York