Seles ready for return but doubts linger

Monica Seles will play her first match in a tour event in 28 months at the Canadian Open in Toronto tomorrow.

Talking to journalists after a charity doubles event on Saturday (pictured above) Seles was upbeat about her return to competitive play but thinks she could have difficulty putting the memory of her stabbing out of her mind.

Seles, who was attacked by a German, Gunther Parche, during a change of ends during a match in Hamburg in April 1993, was generous in her praise of the American sports psychologist Jerry Russel May, who has worked with her for more than a year.

"It's still hard and there are days when you struggle with it, but I have someone I can talk to and I go through exercises that help me to sit down in that chair again," she said. While she expressed the hope that security provisions "will be stronger," Seles, the joint No 1 seed with Steffi Graf despite having no world ranking, emphasised that: "I'm not going to be obsessed with it or worry about it too much."