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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tour Scrambles For Seles Return

Associated Press

Negotiations among the top players regarding Monica Seles’ protected ranking upon her return are coming to a close. Seles has not played competitively since being stabbed during a match two years ago.

So far, it has been agreed that Seles will receive unlimited wild cards into the main draw of all WTA Tour events in 1995 with the possible exception of the year-ending WTA Tour Championships; will receive co-seeding with the top player at each event; and will be assured a coranking of No. 1 for a minimum of six events.

Seles is expected to announce her return Saturday.

Goin’ fishin’

Murphy Jensen, the doubles specialist whose disappearance sparked a police manhunt, was caught in a traffic jam when he heard he had been defaulted from his match at Wimbledon, the New York Times reported today.

Patricia Jensen, the player’s mother, said when her son heard on his car radio that he had been defaulted from his second-round mixed doubles match, he turned around and headed back to London, the newspaper reported.

Jensen is now said to be on a fishing trip in northern England. He was was fined $1,000.

Long odds

The bookmaking house of William Hill would have had to pay out 400,000 pounds if Cedric Pioline had beaten Boris Becker, but Becker prevailed in the fifth set.

“We always thought we’d be open for business tomorrow, come what may,” William Hill spokesman Graham Hill said. “That one, we managed to come out all right.”

Snoozing Sampras

Pete Sampras hasn’t done anything too exciting during his free time. Instead he spends it “watching the great TV they have here in London. It puts me to sleep. There’s no ESPN here.”

Hasn’t he found any British television shows interesting? “Unfortunately not,” Sampras said. “I’ve been watching ‘Seinfeld,’ because fortunately they have it here. I watched the U.S. Open, the golf - a little bit of tennis.”

Million-dollar women

By reaching the semifinals, Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario passed $1 million in earnings for 1995.

The Spaniard, runner-up at the Australian, Italian and French Opens but winner in Barcelona and Berlin on the WTA tour, arrived at Wimbledon with $947,232.

Graf, winner of the French Open and also an indoor tournament in Paris along with championships at Delray Beach, Fla., the Lipton and Houston, had $946,020.

Fine by Goran

Goran Ivanisevic became the latest player ordered to add to the Grand Slam Development Fund, as he was fined $500 for slamming his racket to the ground and breaking it when he lost a tiebreaker point in the second set of his match against Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

“But it’s okay,” he said. “I won.”