Graf Wastes No Time With Rivalry, Beating Sabatini in 50 Minutes

As rivalries go, Steffi Graf vs. Gabriela Sabatini isn’t much.

Graf, who has become the most powerful player in women’s tennis, asserted her dominance over one of her highly regarded peers in thoroughly convincing fashion Thursday afternoon at the Australian Open.

With surface temperatures reaching 140 degrees, Graf turned center court into so much scorched earth in a 6-3, 6-0 semifinal victory over Sabatini.

Graf will play Helena Sukova in the final Saturday. Sukova struggled to defeat Belinda Cordwell of New Zealand, 7-6, 4-6, 6-2, in the other semifinal.

The No. 1 player in the world, Graf needed just 50 minutes to eliminate the fourth-ranked Sabatini, who said she gradually wilted under pressure in the intense heat during the second set.

Graf’s superiority was never more evident than in the second set, when she gave up only 8 points.

“It was like I couldn’t do anything,” Sabatini said.

But Graf could do everything. She won the first 10 points of the set, breaking the Argentine at love in the first game and holding serve at love in the second game.

By then, it was only a matter of time: 20 minutes for the set.

Graf, who plays doubles with Sabatini, was asked if she would speak with her 18-year-old partner about this match.

“I don’t think so,” Graf said.

There really isn’t much to say. Graf has now beaten Sabatini 15 times in 17 meetings, which makes the Graf-Sabatini rivalry something less than, say, Martina Navratilova vs. Chris Evert, as far as its competitiveness goes.

At first, though, Sabatini appeared to be intent on keeping up her side of the rivalry. She broke Graf’s first 2 service games, but Graf did the same to Sabatini, so neither player held serve in the first 4 games.

After Graf broke back the second time to 2-2, the 19-year-old West German began to assert herself. Graf hit a winner for the first point, then Sabatini committed 3 errors to lose the game at love.

“I think I started doing too many mistakes,” Sabatini said.

But there wasn’t much Sabatini could do from then on. She broke Sabatini at love in the sixth game and soon served out the set.

The second set was brilliant for Graf.

“It was probably the best tennis I have ever seen,” women’s tennis historian Ted Tinling said. “I can’t remember anyone I’ve seen who could counteract that.”

Graf allowed only 4 points on her serve in the second set. She kept Sabatini on the move and forced her into repeated errors.

On successive game points, Sabatini hit a backhand wide to drop to 3-0, missed a forehand into the net to trail, 4-0, and double-faulted to fall behind, 5-0.

At 30-30 in the sixth game, Graf served an ace, and then, on match point, forced Sabatini to return a second serve long.

“She was moving me, and I wasn’t running very much,” said Sabatini, who said she was tired from her earlier matches and indicated she had all but given up.

“I was angry because I didn’t try. . . . I didn’t try to fight a little bit more.”

There will be other opportunities, said Sabatini, who believes it is still too early to call her rivalry with Graf no contest.

“She’s going to be maybe my rival in the future,” Sabatini said. “I’m thinking to be No. 1 . . . I need to work more on my game.”

Graf said a rivalry cannot be judged on Sabatini’s semifinal performance because Sabatini had an off-day.

“Otherwise, Martina is still not easy to play against. I would say (Lori) McNeil sometimes has a good shot. Pam Shriver. I don’t know.”

However, Sabatini knows who to pick to win the Graf-Sukova match.

“I don’t think it will be very much problem for Steffi to beat Sukova,” Sabatini said. “I don’t think she has too much of a chance.”

Sukova, seeded fifth, played the big points better than Cordwell, who twice had chances to serve for the first set and failed.

There were 11 service breaks in the erratically played match, but the most costly came in the first set. Cordwell double-faulted twice while serving for the set at 5-4.

“I made a real botch of it,” said Cordwell, who lost the first-set tiebreaker, 7-2.

After losing the second set, during which there were 5 service breaks, Sukova held 6 match points in the third set before finally cashing in on the seventh when she sent a backhand passing shot cross-court for a winner.

“I am happy to be alive after this match,” Sukova said.

The Czech’s joy may be short-lived. Graf is 8-1 against Sukova.

Australian Open Notes

John McEnroe and Mark Woodforde lost their semifinal doubles match to Australians Darren Cahill and Mark Kratzmann, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5.