Graf Beats McNeil and Gains Final

They think they know how to beat 18-year-old Steffi Graf. Here, at the U.S. Open, Sylvia Hanika, Pam Shriver and Lori McNeil all have this in common, this rare knowledge.

First, Hanika came up with a plan, saying, just junk it up and hit slice shots against Graf. Yeah, it will drive her crazy. No, Shriver said, you have to force the play and dictate the pace.

Friday, it was McNeil’s turn. She decided to make Graf pass her at the net. Surely, Graf couldn’t hit passing shots all day.

“I’m not impressed with anybody,” McNeil said before the match. I admire Steffi for the level she plays at. But I don’t think that she’s unbeatable.”

Yes, the three shared a common bond, knowing how to beat the world’s No. 1 player. However, Hanika, Shriver and McNeil have one more thing in common:

They are all someplace else today: Out of the tournament.

Of the three, McNeil’s strategy worked the best, and she almost pulled off her second straight upset. But Graf has lost only once this year, and she wasn’t about to let some net-rusher stop her from the long-awaited rematch with the premier serve-and-volley artist, Martina Navratilova.

Graf finally warmed up her forehand and wore down McNeil’s resistance, winning their semifinal match, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, at the National Tennis Center.

On the other hand, the No. 2-seeded Navratilova had a much easier time in the first semifinal, beating No. 6-seeded Helena Sukova, 6-2, 6-2. Some even thought that the Sukova-Navratilova match might have more drama and a higher level of play, especially since Sukova had defeated Navratilova once this year.

However, the first semifinal was an exhibition of women’s tennis at its worst, virtually lulling the crowd to sleep. It took a fine effort by McNeil, 23, of Houston, and an even better response from Graf to save the day.

For Graf, it was anything but easy. She was forced to hit passing shots, scramble on the baseline and, essentially, play her best match of the tournament thus far.

Finally, after McNeil made Graf run from side to side, and up and back all afternoon, the No. 1 player made her own run for it.

Dismissing the usual protocol--in which the two players walk off the court together after the match--Graf shook hands with McNeil. Then she grabbed her rackets and other belongings, kissed her father, Peter, and headed for the exit, leaving McNeil to walk off the court by herself.

“I don’t know why she was in a hurry,” McNeil said, shrugging. “I couldn’t catch her, so I don’t know.”

McNeil’s off-hand comment made everyone laugh in the postmatch interview session. She looked around in surprise, not realizing how funny her remark sounded.

But that’s the way this U.S. Open has been for McNeil. Somehow, more than any other player, McNeil has captured the public’s imagination here, almost without knowing how she did it.

Earlier in the week, McNeil stopped Chris Evert’s streak of having reached at least the Open semifinals 16 years in a row by defeating the former No. 1 player in a three-set quarterfinal match. Not since Arthur Ashe, in 1972, has a black player advanced to the Open semifinals. Althea Gibson is the last black woman to win the title, in 1958.

A few shots here and there, and McNeil almost had the chance to duplicate Gibson’s feat.

“I think I learned a lot from this match,” said McNeil, who was seeded 11th. “I thought I played really well. I’m a little disappointed because I know it was just a few shots here and there.”

Said Graf: “I feel happy. I don’t know if I feel lucky. It was a very tough match. I thought she didn’t miss many shots. Lori, she’s always up (at the net) in the court. I knew she couldn’t continue to play like that. So, I was waiting for some errors and they came in the second set.”

The errors did start to creep into McNeil’s game, but only after she had played a stirring first set, taking it, 6-4. At the beginning, it almost seemed as if Graf didn’t know what hit her as McNeil swarmed the net. In the first set, McNeil made 24 approaches to the net and won 13 of those points.

In all, McNeil ventured in 93 times and took 44 points. It made her net-rushing effort against Evert look like slow-motion by comparison.

McNeil broke Graf at 30 in the fifth game as the West German hit a forehand long. In the first set, Graf didn’t even have a break-point opportunity. And, twice, McNeil recorded aces with her second serve in the first set, the second coming on set point.

The crowd, which was pro-McNeil, finally had a contest with some tension and a high caliber of play. Every McNeil winner in the first set brought wild applause, while Graf’s winners elicited polite clapping.

It’s odd how quickly things have changed for Graf. Just one year ago, she was the challenger, the player who could do no wrong. Almost always, perhaps except against Gabriela Sabatini, Graf was the crowd favorite. Now, the spectators are seemingly pulling for Graf to lose or at least to have a close match.

At Manhattan Beach, the crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of Evert when she met Graf in the Virginia Slims final last month. Friday, McNeil was the bright new star to cheer for at Flushing Meadow.

The interesting question is, will Navratilova, now the underdog, become the crowd favorite in the women’s singles final today?

If it turns out that way, Graf has already had plenty of experience dealing with the change in attitude.

“Well, it didn’t affect me at all,” Graf said of the crowd response. “What can you do against it? In the beginning of the first set, there were long rallies and they were cheering during the points but, otherwise, it did not really bother me.”

Obviously, the quickest way to subdue a partisan crowd is to start hitting winners, and Graf did so, taking command in the second set.

She broke McNeil in the second game at 15, using a forehand passing shot for the break. McNeil didn’t help herself in that game when she botched an easy overhead at 15-15.

That’s the only break Graf needed in the second set, but she recorded one more in the eighth game for insurance.

Then came the third set--which included one game that McNeil won’t forget for a long time.

Graf and McNeil broke each other in the first two games of the third set to get back on serve. In the opener, McNeil needed six break points before she won the game. Graf had an easier time one game later, breaking McNeil at 30.

They also exchanged breaks in the fourth and fifth games. Two games later, in the seventh game, if McNeil could have one shot back, it would be the easy forehand volley she hit into the net on break point.

“Yeah, I’ll never forget that one,” McNeil said. “I took my eye off the ball right when I was hitting it.”

Graf, whose only loss this year came to Navratilova in the Wimbledon final, had her own theory on McNeil’s play.

“Sometimes the tougher the shots are, the better she was playing,” Graf said. “On some of easier ones, she wasn’t playing so well.”

Meanwhile, McNeil was talking about how, if a few more shots had gone her way, she might be playing Navratilova today. McNeil didn’t think Graf raised her game during the crucial points of the match, saying that Graf merely maintained a steady level.

Which shouldn’t come as any surprise to Graf. Why, just one year ago, she was the one who was shaking up the Establishment, by claiming that Navratilova and Evert weren’t so tough anymore.

A year later, women’s tennis still has the Big Two, only it consists of Graf and Navratilova. Now, after this historic week at the National Tennis Center, Lori McNeil has possibly taken the first step on her way to joining the upper echelon of women’s tennis.

Tennis Notes Navratilova’s semifinal victory was so convincing that she spent moretime answering questions about her new haircut than she did about defeating Sukova. “I call it funky,” she said of the haircut. “I figure with this haircut I can get away with anything. We have a word for it in Czech. R-o-s-t-a-k. It means, not a punk, but somebody who gets into trouble. Somebody that tries to steal the neighbor’s chickens, and tie their legs together. And step on cats’ tails. . . . Navratilova has met Graf in the two most recent Grand Slam events, beating her in straight sets at Wimbledon and losing in three at the French Open. Last year, Navratilova needed a third-set tiebreaker before she stopped Graf in the semifinals. Although Graf has won two of their last three matches, Navratilova holds a 6-3 career edge. . . . In the men’s semifinals today, No. 2 Stefan Edberg meets No. 3 Mats Wilander. Wilander holds a 6-4 lead over Edberg in their career, but Edberg has won their last two matches. The second semifinal has No. 6 Jimmy Connors playing two-time defending champion and top-seeded Ivan Lendl. Lendl, obviously, is the heavy favorite, since the 35-year-old Connors hasn’t won a tournament since Oct. 1984 and is also suffering from an injured right foot. Lendl leads in the series, 18-13. . . . The women’s final is scheduled after both of the men’s semifinals because there is a chance of rain later in the afternoon, and officials want to get in the men’s matches first. Navratilova wasn’t thrilled by having to wait all day, calling it “insane,” but agreed that the idea had some sense after being told of the rationale behind the decision.

Once again, the American team of Ken Flach and Robert Seguso found itself trailing, two sets to love, in the men’s doubles final. Flach and Seguso had rallied to win from a similar deficit against the Spanish team of Emilio Sanchez and Sergio Casal in the Wimbledon doubles final. But, Friday, their rally failed to pay off as they lost, 7-6, 6-2, 4-6, 5-7, 7-6, to the Swedish team of Anders Jarryd and Edberg. Flach and Seguso broke service in the first game of the third set to start their comeback. “No, we didn’t let up,” Edberg said. “Not really. We were unlucky to get broken in the first game of the third. When they got that first break, they started to play better. Because they weren’t playing that well in the first two sets. We were the ones who were playing the aggressive doubles. But then they came back strong.” Finally, in the fifth-set tiebreaker, Edberg and Jarryd started playing the way they had in the first two sets, winning the tiebreaker, 7-2. They had come back from a 3-1 deficit (which include one service break) in the fifth.