Still perfect Down Under, Monica Seles overcame a plethora of injuries Saturday to win her fourth Australian Open. The victory over Anke Huber came three years after Seles won her last Grand Slam title on the same Center Court.
Seles' 6-4, 6-1 victory marked one more step in her recovery from the nightmare of the stabbing in Germany a few months after she won a third straight Australian Open.Seles couldn't serve as fast as she had before she strained her left shoulder lifting weights a few days ago, and she couldn't cover the court the way she did before she pulled a groin muscle coming into the tournament.
She hit more lunging one-handed shots in desperation than she ever had, but once again she found a way to win - as she has in all the 28 matches she's played in this championship since 1991.
Seles' ninth Grand Slam title reaffirmed her status as co-No. 1 with Steffi Graf, absent while she recovers from foot surgery.
Huber, playing in her first major final, started out strongly, breaking Seles and grabbing a 3-2 lead, but she couldn't cope with the steady drumbeat of deep groundstrokes Seles pounded.
Seles, whose only loss in the comeback she launched last August came against Graf in the U.S. Open final, immediately evened the first set 3-3 by breaking Huber's serve and spirit after nine deuces in a 14-minute game.
Seles spotted Huber's weakness - forehands that she kept slugging long or into the net - and attacked it. Huber contributed to her own downfall, double-faulting for the third time to start the 10th game of the set, clubbing a forehand wide to go to a second break-point, and missing an easy forehand when she had an open court.
That last shot of the set by Huber clipped the net cord, popped up and fell back, and the 21-year-old German stared at it in disgust as she dropped her racket.
Seles, who won $380,000, cruised as easily through the second set as she had in nearly all her matches. The only set she lost in the tournament was in the semifinals against Chanda Rubin, a match that was more worthy of a final than this one.
"I cannot believe, still, that I'm here," Seles told the crowd as she smiled and fought back tears. Her father and coach, Karolji, wiped tears from his eyes in his courtside seat as he listened to her.
"I left this tournament in 1993 with unbelievable memories," she said. "The hardest thing for me, the time that I couldn't play, was not being able to defend my title here."
Seles' victory over Huber, her seventh without a loss going back to the 1991 Australian, was more predictable than the weather. Rain threatened with gray clouds hovering above the stadium, but held off long enough to complete the match outdoors.
A giant picture of Seles covered a wall across the Yarra River from the National Tennis Center, and the message it carried was "Two Streaks Are Better Than One." Seles had a brilliant streak going when she left tennis on April 30, 1991 after the stabbing in Hamburg, Germany, and she has started one again with a title in Sydney and one more Australian championship.