SELES KEEPS GAME IN FOCUS.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

MANHATTAN BEACH - Know this now, Monica Seles does smile on the court. It happened Saturday night, and I've got witnesses.

Turns out, it didn't hurt at all. Must have had something to do with having just knocked off the No.1 player in the world for the second time in two weeks.

Capturing tennis tournaments can be serious business, particularly for Seles. On the court, she is pure intensity. One very serious lady. Not a hint of personality, like it might distract her laser focus.

It served her well at something called the estyle.com Classic, which just goes to show you not all dot.coms have gone screaming into the night.

Seles was matched in her semifinal against No.1-seed Martina Hingis, which was like oil and water with a net down the center.

Hingis laughs at her mistakes, smiles frequently, acts like she's having fun. She played a smooth, varied game, mixing up her serves going to the net, looking like she was in control even when she wasn't.

Seles is all power, all the time. Everything is hit with two hands, everything a missile with intent to maim. Everything seemed like an effort. She looked tired in the first set, and won that one. She looked dead in the second, when Hingis breezed to a 6-1 victory.

Turns out, it was an ambush. She was lying low, playing possum.

If there is one thing we should have learned about Seles by now, it's not to count her out. Somewhere there always seems another comeback, somewhere another reservoir of will.

Score one for the one-dimensional approach. Score one for being seriously serious. For digging deep and keeping the pedal down.

``I knew she could step it up any time,'' Hingis said.

Sure, she can say that now. Wonder what she would have said if asked after blowing Seles away in the second set.

Then Hingis served to open the third, won the first point - and lost the next four and the game. Turns out, set and match. There was never a break in service the rest of the night.

Seles, out five months with something the tennis world likes to call a ``stress reaction'' in her right foot, started her comeback in earnest last month at Stanford and then advanced to the finals in San Diego last week before losing to Venus Williams.

This time she had a three-set victory over Sandrine Testud and a remarkable three-set win over defending estyle.com champion Serena Williams on Friday.

She should have looked exhausted. She should have been exhausted.

``I'm really not sore, just tired,'' Seles said.

Hingis couldn't put her away, could never break her serve. Hingis came close in the eighth game, but again Seles battled back, gave it another grunt - actually it sounds more like a shriek - and was on her way, not that she looked happy about it.

Actually, when the matched ended, Seles flashed a winner's smile. Somewhere a camera got it.

``You just never know what's going to happen,'' said Seles, talking about her comeback, not her smile.

But then a five-month layoff is nothing for Seles. This is the woman who was No.1-ranked player in the world in 1993 when a deranged fan stabbed in the back at a tournament in Hamburg.

She was out 27 months before returning, and by then a whole new hoard of tennis phenoms were on the scene. She's won one Grand Slam since (Australia '96), and finished last season ranked fourth.

Seles has become a sentimental favorite on the tour, and was the obvious crowd favorite against Hingis. At one point in the third set, there was a chant of ``You can do it, Monica!'' from the crowd. Afterwards, she complained about it to the umpire.

Today she'll be matched against Lindsay Davenport, which will make the crowd pull interesting.

But Seles has had three consecutive tough matches, and will have other things to worry about. She's lost eight straight to Davenport.

``Miracles happen all the time,'' Hingis said.

Even very serious ones.