Seles Enters Madrid Open

Monica Seles will return to competitive tennis next week in the Madrid Open, and she has asked for wild-card entry to the Eastbourne tournament in England next month. The Madrid tournament will mark Seles’ first competition since February, when she lost to Iva Majoli in the Pan Pacific tournament in Tokyo.

A month earlier, Seles won her ninth grand slam title at the Australian Open.

For the past three months, Seles has been sidelined with a shoulder injury. She is co-ranked No. 1 with Steffi Graf by the WTA computer.

The $250,000 Madrid Open, to be played Tuesday through next Saturday, will be Seles’ final tuneup for the French Open.

The top-seeded Graf advanced to the semifinals of the German Open, but second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and No. 5 Anke Huber were upset.

Sanchez Vicario lost to Elena Likhovtseva of Russia 6-3, 2-6, 6-0, while Huber was ousted by Karina Habsudova of Slovakia 6-1, 6-4. Graf beat 10th-seeded Nathalie Tauziat of France 6-1, 7-5.

Stefan Edberg, playing his 14th and final year on the tour, received an emotional farewell after losing 6-3, 6-3 to Richard Krajicek in the Italian Open quarterfinals in Rome. “My girlfriend and another friend were supporting me,” Krajicek cracked. “It was like three against 12,000.”

The Edberg-Krajicek match featured the unusual sight of two men playing classic serve-and-volley tennis on clay. It also included the second-fastest serve recorded on the ATP Tour.

In the eighth game of the second set, Krajicek’s first serve was timed at 136.4 mph - a shade less than the 137 mph delivery by Britain’s Greg Rusedski last year.