Life has never been the same, however, since that fateful day when she was stabbed by a man while playing in a tournament in Hamburg, Germany. It was well over two years before she regained enough confidence to return to the tour.

But in recent months her life had again been hit by tragedy as her father was struck by cancer. Seles played in only a few tournaments, spending as much time as possible at home with him until he died on May 14. Nobody knows whether Seles would have maintained her domination of the game had the stabbing incident not occurred.

Instead, it was Germany's Steffi Graf who regained the number one spot and held it for most of the period until Hingis burst onto the scene. The17-year-old Swiss woman is now well into her second year as the top player. "Now I have to think of myself and concentrate on my tennis," Seles said on arriving in Paris.

Her father's death is still fresh, but Seles is desperately trying to separate things: "I think of him every day. But for me it's a tennis tournament. I love to play. That is how I take it."

Seles, 24, said she had not regained the full potential she had when she was the number 1 player, and a look at her record against Hingis underlines this. Hingis leads the series 5-0 and won their semifinal match at Roland Garros last year in three tight sets.

Hingis is bidding for a non-calendar year Grand Slam after winning the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open plus the 1998 Australian Open.

She says she was saddened that this wouldn't be regarded as equivalent to the achievement of the one-year Grand Slam which Steffi Graf last achieved in 1988.

"I know I won the last three, but I guess it is not accepted," said Hingis. She added in more generalterms: "I would just love to have this title."

The second semifinal brings together the 1996 Olympic gold medallist Lindsay Davenport and silver medallist Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.

The Spaniard is in the Roland Garros semifinals for the eighth time and won the 1989 and 1994 titles. World number 2 Davenport is in her third straight Grand Slam semifinal, but she has never gone beyond that stage.

She is 2-6 against Sanchez Vicario, but has won two of their last three meetings, among them the Atlanta Games final.

"That will be an extremely tough match on clay. Hopefully I can take advantage of some aspects of her game. But she is going to run down a lot of balls, more than any opponent I have played yet," said Davenport.