U.S. Open Takes On Foreign Accent With 4 Czech-Born Players in Finals : Navratilova Is Taken to the Limit by Graf but Wins Tiebreaker

What we are witnessing is the greening of Steffi Graf. Every week, at every tournament, she grows stronger and more capable and, at age 17, is becoming more of a force on the women’s tennis tour.

She comes of age at a time when, with the gradual decline of Chris Evert Lloyd and the 30th birthday next month of reigning queen Martina Navratilova, the sport is in search of an heiress.

Graf looks like a worthy successor.

On Saturday, the West German teen-ager showed why she has received the adulation of the fans the past two weeks at the U.S. Open. She did no less than nearly face down Navratilova, the game’s grittiest player, in a third-set tiebreaker during the women’s singles semifinal at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow.

Navratilova won, 6-1, 6-7, 7-6, but it could easily have gone the other way, putting Graf in the first Grand Slam final of her career. Instead, top-seeded Navratilova will face seventh-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia in the final today at 10 a.m. PDT.

The Navratilova-Graf semifinal began Friday afternoon, but play was suspended by rain 19 minutes into the first set. Navratilova, more overpowering than ever, won the first game of the match in exactly one minute and was leading, 4-1, and serving at 15-30 when rain stopped play.

By Saturday afternoon when the match resumed, it was a new Graf who took the court. The confidence had returned.

After her first-round match last week, Graf said she didn’t think she would win here, that she was not ready. After her win in the next round, she changed her mind. “I am not always saying what I am believing,” she said.

Navratilova applauds Graf’s attitude, saying that the game needs players who approach the sport that way.

“I had that attitude at that age,” Navratilova said. “I’m glad there is someone that has enough confidence to say that and to believe it. And it’s great; it’s great for women’s tennis. I’m glad that she’s got that attitude.”

It might be something Graf inherited from her father and coach, Peter Graf, who, when she was 3 years old, ran a string across two chairs in the basement of their home in Bruehl, West Germany, so that his daughter could hit balls with a sawed-off wooden racquet.

Under his guidance, she has developed into a determined player who never gives up.

She wants to win and always has. She grinds out the points and chases balls and fights for every advantage. She’s prepared to stay on the court all day to win.

Saturday, Peter Graf sat in front of Navratilova’s coach, Mike Estep, in the players’ friends box, and looked on impassively as his daughter fought the match of her life, especially in the third-set tiebreaker.

Graf yielded the first set to Navratilova, then got down to work in the second. If Graf was thinking about her loss to Navratilova here in the semifinals last year, she wasn’t letting on.

“After the first set was over, I was thinking, ‘Come on, it can’t go like this,’ because at 4-1 yesterday she was playing unbelievably, and there was really not much I can do. Today, in the second set, I was trying more to keep the ball in play, and I was returning better. And I was also coming in once or twice to the net. I mean, I was trying to do something.”

What she was doing was chinking Navratilova’s armor at its thickest point--her net game. Navratilova netted five forehand and five backhand volleys in the second set, too many errors against Graf, who won the tiebreaker, 7-3.

The third set started well for Navratilova--she broke Graf in the first game and held her own serve for a 2-0 lead. But Graf, normally a placid player, began to pump herself up after points, shaking her fists and nodding her head. Her cheerleading culminated in her breaking Navratilova at love to pull even, 4-4.

By this time the crowd of 20,833 in Louis Armstrong Stadium was warming to this teen-ager who had not backed down. Both players held serve to bring about another tiebreaker.

Navratilova has reason to dread tiebreakers. She’s 3-9 in tiebreakers in the U.S. Open and the memory of her loss in the 1981 final here to Tracy Austin was vivid.

“I used to be very good at it because I used to play a lot of tiebreakers back in the ‘70s,” she said. “Now I haven’t played that many, and I think I play it too safe.”

That’s not the way it happened Saturday. Navratilova promised herself that she was “going to go down swinging.” An understandable sentiment from an 11-year tour pro. But the remarkable thing was to watch Graf, No. 3 in the world, fight back with equal gusto.

Graf held off two match points and teetered with one of her own. With Navratilova serving at 7-7 in the tiebreaker, Graf blasted a backhand passing shot that flew past Navratilova. Graf, sensing a win, screamed. Match point.

Graf served on the next point but netted a backhand meant to pass Navratilova. From there, she netted a service return and watched as Navratilova served out the match with an ace, winning the tiebreaker, 10-8.

It was a stirring and impressive show, but Graf was deeply disappointed.

“I am very disappointed that I lost the match,” Graf said. “You want to win and not to lose, whatever the score is. It doesn’t matter. It was a very close match. Maybe it will come later that I’m more happy about it. But at the moment, I just hate to lose. Really, it’s very difficult.”

Then the confidence flooded back and, along with it, the realization that she is that much nearer to being number one.

“I think I’m really getting closer now,” she said. “I mean, you can see that she (Navratilova) is not that much better than everybody else. I think even Chris is not that great anymore. I mean, she’s good, she’s good. But I think she’s getting (down) a little bit. I would like to have played her in the semis because she’s not moving so good anymore. She’s not what she was one or two years ago.”

But then, neither is Graf.

Open Notes

Martina Navratilova, playing in her 14th U.S. Open, has a 58-11 record here, dating to 1973. She leads Helena Sukova, 15-1, in career matches. Sukova’s only win was in the 1984 Australian Open, where she ended Navratilova’s 74-match winning streak. The Australian is Sukova’s only other appearance in a Grand Slam singles final.