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Though the scar from the knife still tingles before it rains, Seles has made a full physical recovery. She has even grown an inch--to 5 ft., 10 1/2 in.--and that seems to have given her even more leverage. The psychological scars, of course, were much harder to get over. She spent countless hours with sports psychologist Jerry Russell May, but it was finally Mark McCormack, the head of the all-powerful International Management Group, who cajoled her out of her isolation. Of the stabbing, Seles says, "I've put the whole thing in a box. If I need to open it, I will, but I hope I don't have to."
Seles has grown in other ways. Her musical tastes went from Madonna to Hendrix. During her time off, she studied French and learned to shoot pool and play the guitar, even buying a Fender Stratocaster. She may have had another ax to grind. Seles is still annoyed at the way she was treated by her sisters on the tour. "They were supportive of me the day I was stabbed," she told the New York Times, "but by the next Monday in Rome they were already standing up to take my ranking away. Gabby [Gab riela] Sabatini was the only person who thought of me as a human being and not as a ranking position they wanted to grab."
Now that Seles is back in form, she can give the women professionals some lessons not only in tennis but in other things as well. "Everything about life is funny," she said when asked why she seemed so happy. "If you can't laugh at life, then why are you living?"
And you have to laugh at the way Seles has reclaimed her game and her life. When asked for a substitute for her favorite word, "wow!" Seles said, "I don't know. How about ecstatical?" Sounds good.
--With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York