Monica Seles was yesterday preparing for a legal battle with the organisers of the Citizens Cup tournament on the third anniversary of the stabbing which forced her out of the game for over two years.

Seles filed a £10.6 million claim for lost earnings against the organisers of the Hamburg tournament during which she was attacked at courtside by Gunter Parche, a supporter of her arch-rival Steffi Graf.

She made the claim just a day before the three-year statute of limitations expired against the Deutscher Tennisbund (DTB) Rothenbaum Turnier GmbH - the commercial business which organised the Citizens Cup - in the Regional Civil Court in Hamburg.

Seles did not return to competitive tennis after the stabbing until last summer when she won the Canadian Open before reaching the final of the US Open and winning her ninth Grand Slam title in January at the Australian Open.

"Monica was denied any kind of reasonable settlement from the DTB and therefore was forced to file this claim," said her lawyer, Wilhelm Danelzik.