Australian Open Diary

“It takes players, it takes winning, it takes personalities, it takes marketing,” Agassi said. “We are a pretty long way from that.”

Dress Up

Monica Seles, who has more reason than most to fear random loonies, says she has to dress up in disguise when she goes out in Melbourne.

Seles, whose career was interrupted for more than two years by a stabbing at a tournament in Germany in 1993, finds the public attention a little hard to handle.

“People are really nice but there are some people who are really forward,” Seles says. “I’m not the sort of person that can just kind of brush them off and sometimes they ask really strange questions.”

“I don’t go out alone. I tried that once. Boy, oh boy, wrong idea. That was a really quick turn around, that’s for sure, back to the room.”

Now Seles tries to hide her identity.

“I put on a hat or glasses,” she said.

The verystriking Venus Williams couldn’t sneak around even if she wanted to. “People know who we are, especially because we’re wearing beads,” she said. She waves back and will say hi to fans on the street, but not if they’re driving.

“Everyone is honking their horn. I don’t respond to honks,” she said.

For Pete’s sake

The Williams sisters want to be like Pete. Venus Williams says the hard-hitting teen-agers have no time for boys outside of tennis, but without hesitation she nominates Pete Sampras as their favourite man on the court.

“We absolutely love the way he plays,” she said. “Actually, they admire him so much they are thinking of changing their names,” joked Venus Williams.

“We hope one day to be Pete also. We might change our name to Pete. It’s a great name, it really is.”

But she ruled out any chance of a mixed doubles matchup, saying she was happy to continue playing with Justin Gimelstob, with whom she won the French and Australian Opens last year.

“I’d rather just watch him(Sampras),” Williams said. “Maybe I’ll get a lesson.”