Seles fails to come to grips with Studenikova

THOSE fans wishing Monica Seles a dream return to Wimbledon saw her second round match against Katarina Studenikova turn into something of a nightmare yesterday with the joint world number one losing to the little known Slovakian 7-5, 5-7, 6-4.

The last time the pair met was at this year's Australian Open where Seles won but this was a very different contest with the 23 year old from Bratislava clearly sensing from early on that this was a rare opportunity to make an impression.

She trailed the second seed 5-3 early on but showed great nerve to fight her way to 7-5 opening set victory and, as Seles failed to come to grips with her finely sliced backhands, the outsider seemed, on more than one occasion, as if she was about to wrap it all up without needing a third set.

Seles, however, hung in there, eventually taking a long and hard fought 11th game on the third break point with a brilliant return of serve and clinching the set to 15 after a fractionally long lob by her opponent.

"I felt in the third set I had chances to take the match on zillions of occasions but I just didn't take them," said Seles afterwards, "I could see the chances but I just wasn't going for my shots."

This was Studenikova's first win of her career against a top 10 player. "I knew that on grass she would have some problems but I thought that she would come to the net more.

For her part Seles could not even start to explain what had gone wrong but she was clear that her own performance had been well below par while that of the world number 59 had been considerably more solid than on their previous meeting.

There is, of course, the matter of her shoulder injury surgery on which she has said she will delay until after the US Open later in the year but that did not seem to trouble her so much as she coasted her way past Mary Joe Fernandez in the Eastbourne final last week.

More crucially, it seems that Seles has not yet rediscovered the great mental strength she possessed before the 1993 attack she suffered in Hamburg for when, through the third set she found herself in trouble again there was not the usual determination to fight her way out.

In fact, it was the second seed who had scored the first break of the decider to go 2-0 up but in game eight her forehand unravelled completely and a string of errors allowed Studenikova to draw level.

It seemed as though the 5,8 minute second set had taken its toll on the 22 year old while the psychological reserves she had previously been able to call upon in these situations had been drained by events off of the court. Having gone behind 5-4 she was quickly in trouble at 15-40 on her own serve and the match, rather fittingly, slipped away when she sent an attempted forehand pass a couple of inches wide of the line.

Seles has some time to concentrate her mind on her play again over the coming weeks while her rival Steffi Graf would appear likely to be tied up collecting yet another winner's cheque.

Her day, though, will surely come again unlike Pam Shriver's which had actually passed quite some time before she stepped out on centre court with fifth seed Anke Huber yesterday.

If Shriver's career was handled by Don King she probably have a few very profitable years left in her. A string of sad no hopers would beat a path to her door and none would be allowed past the threshold unless the Don was absolutely sure that they were sure to make Pam look good in what, in this line of work at 33 (and 51 weeks), may be considered her dot age.

Having made a special plea for a wild card entry to these championships Shriver knew that her reward would be a crack at one of the game's rising stars but the American could hardly have been handed a tougher route to the last 32 than Germany's Anke Huber a player of considerable ability whose strong passing game locks as if it was constructed with a vetera serve and volleyer in mind.

She obviously returns well and she passes well, and she has a good lob, and when you combine all of those things it's tough for a player like me so I was hoping that he wouldn't do them so well today, said the former world number four whose luck was clearly out.

The German, who came here full of confidence having recently, won on grass on Rosmalen where she beat Helena Sukova in the final was exhibiting all of her strength in full and after taking the first four games of the match with little trouble her progress. was only briefly halted by a strong service.showing by her opponent in the fifth.

Shriver actually had two points to save the set but could do little about the loss of the first when Huber played a marvellous backhand pass down the line although the second was an altogether different matter with the 33 year old handing Huber deuce on a plate and conceding the remaining to points with barely a whimper.

The second set went, in it's entirety, pretty much the same way. Huber taking the first four games again and this time only allowing one to slip out of her grasp before a brilliant angled cross court backhand by the fifth seed and a double fault by Shriver drew a curtain on the Wimbledon singles career of the American.

It was an emotional farewell on the Centre Court with the star, who always fared much better there, as elsewhere, in the doubles thinking back to, her first ever contest there against Sue Barker in 1978. "I was a set up and 5-2 and I ended up losing that match. I had three match points, I think I lost 8-6 in the third. I honestly believe if I had won that match I would have had a very different career on Centre Court."