NEW YORK -- Monica Seles, still suffering the psychological effects of being stabbed in the back, says she will return to the courts only when she feels the game can be fun for her again."The only right time for me to play again is when I can see myself and think only this: 'Gosh, I'm happy again. This is fun'," Seles said in an interview in the March issue of Tennis Magazine.


The horrifying knifing attack during a match last April by a deranged German fan who idolized Steffi Graf has clearly transformed Seles, 20, who refuses to set a date for her competitive return. There had been rumors at the end of last year that she would take the court again at the Australian Open last January, but Seles opted not to play.


Her thoughts now speak far more to the psychological rather than physical damage of a knife wound between the shoulder blades.


"Before I was stabbed, I always lived for tomorrow -- my next match, my next tournament," said the Yugoslav-born star, who won eight Grand Slam singles titles by the age of 19.


"If I've learned one thing from all that's happened to me, it's that if you would know what tomorrow brings, you may not want to live it."


Seles, who was known off court for her somewhat daffy, giggle-filled, high-speed speech, seems more thoughtful and mature.


"I've had a lot of time to think since that day and a lot of time to decide what my priorities are," said Seles, who in 1991 became the youngest top-ranked tennis player in history at age 17.


"I don't spend any time looking over my shoulder. In fact, now I'm less afraid to try lots of the things I never had a chance to do," she said, citing skiing and ice skating as activities she shunned in the past for fear of injury.


"When I play tennis again, I have to play it for the right reason," she said. "I don't want to play to get my No. 1 ranking back. I don't want to play for the attention or to earn more. I don't even want to play because the world wants to see me do it. I only want to play because I love the game, which is the reason I began to play at age 7 in the first place."


To stay in good physical form, Seles told Tennis Magazine that she has been working out under the guidance of renowned track coach Bob Kersee and his Olympic champion wife, Jackie Joyner-Kersee.


Seles admits she has some psychological struggles ahead.


"One of the most important things I've learned over the last year is that I'm the only one who has to deal with the reality of what happened to me." she said. "That reality is so strange and shocking, in so many ways, that I never set a timetable (to play again)."


It has not helped Seles' mental recovery to learn that her attacker, G--nther Parche, received only a suspended sentence from a Hamburg court. The lenient punishment was widely criticized in the press and throughout the tennis world.


And now, with Seles sidelined, Graf regained the top ranking, which was Parche's stated aim.


"The guy who attacked me got what he wanted and he was let out, free," she said. "No matter how you look at it, the message sent by that is that what he did to me was okay."


The player whose fighting spirit was unrivaled on the women's tour and who always seemed supremely focused on the next shot, the next point, now is thinking about her place in tennis history.


"I don't want to be remembered for grunting and giggling. I hated being known for that," she admits. "And I don't want to be the one who got stabbed. I want to be remembered for my game and I want to give something back to the game. There's still a lot more I want to accomplish."