Keeping their distance

“We actually don’t watch each other that much,” said Huber. “Everybody is trying to concentrate on his own tournament. I think that’s better for everybody if you’re both playing.”

“I get nervous watching,” Huber said. “Also, you lose energy when you’re watching, so it’s maybe not the best thing to do during the tournament.”

“I think we can see each other after the tournament. But now, everybody’s a little bit tight and nervous.”

Huber said a tennis relationship has some things to recommend it. “We know each other for six years, so it’s really nice to be togetheragain,” she said. “He helped me go through the difficult time when I was injured. It’s nice to have somebody who understands what you’re doing.”

Hingis loves her horses: Now she’s got a pair of boots to ride with, thanks to a tournament in Canada.

The Swiss top seed now owns a pair of official boots of the type worn by the famed Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“I saw them at the ceremony,” said Hingis, the winner in Toronto. Her wish to own a pair was fulfilled at the US Open. When the Toronto tournament director presented her with them.

“I’m also a passionate rider, so they’re going to find their place in my collection,” Hingis said.

Hingis had a close tennis call on a horse two years ago.

In 1997, she slightly tore the posterior cruciate ligament in her knee after the fall near her home in Switzerland. She missed a month of play and returned in time for the French Open, where she lost the final to Iva Majoli.

US BLUES FOR NOVOTNA: The Czech veteran’s team is out in doublesat the quarter-final stage.

Novotna and Natasha Zvereva were on court in Paris when Novotna twisted her ankle, an injury which she is still feeling and which may have contributed to her third-round singles defeat against Anke Huber.

The top doubles seeds in New York were knocked out by a South African-American combination.

Novotna, now considering retirement, owns a dozen Grand Slam doubles titles with five different partners: Helena Sukova, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Gigi Fernandez, Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis. Zvereva has won 18 major doubles crowns with Hingis, Fernandez, Larisa Neiland and Pam Shriver.

In the men’s veteran ranks, the former team of Robert Seguso and Ken Flach are back together. The former world number 1 pair last played together at Wimbledon, 1988.

AGASSI EYES RETURN: A thawing in relations between Andre Agassi and the US Tennis Association means the world number two may again make himself available for Davis Cup.

After the USTA summarily dismissed well-likedphysician George Fareed — the last in a string of decisions that annoyed Agassi — the Nevada native declared he wouldn’t play in the nations tournament.

Now Fareed has been hired back in a secondary role in the team and Agassi said that decision, and other efforts by the USTA to solicit player input, might lure him back.

“I’m certainly reconsidering it,” Agassi said. “There have been efforts made on behalf of the USTA to kind of allow the players to have a bit more input as to the things that really affect the players out there on the court. We’re going to take it one step at a time.”

Agassi said he would also push for players to have the ultimate word on who captains the team, although he said his decision to return wouldn’t depend on having a particular person as captain.

“I’m not as concerned with who the captain is as much as I’m concerned with how the captain is picked,” Agassi said.

VOICE AS LIGHT AS HER VOLLEY: Former Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna, who announced on Tuesdaythat she would retire at the end of the year, will be remembered by many for her delicate serve and volley game.

But 17-year-old Serena Williams said she’ll remember Novotna’s silvery voice.

“I like her voice,” Williams said. “It’s the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard. It’s like so light. You think someone with her stature, her size, how long she’s been around on the tour and stuff, I never realized that her voice was like that.”

SELES RECONCILED TO LIFE ON ASHE COURT: Monica Seles, who her two US Open titles on the old Louis Armstrong stadium at the National Tennis Centre, is trying hard to learn to love the cavernous Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Seles has always found the giant Ashe Court windy — her fixation on the subject showing in her analysis of which doors can be opened or closed to change the direction of the gusts.

“I just realised that it’s going to be windy for the rest of my career here,” Seles said. “The stadium is going to play fast, all these things.”

“I just said, `I’mgoing to do the best I can with it. It’s windy for my opponent, everybody else. Stop moaning about it’.”

“You are always going to have favorite places and not,” she said. “Hopefully, it’s going to grow on me.”