Graf, Sanchez Vicario Advance : Tennis: The four top-seeded players will meet in the semifinals of $1-million championship tournament.

Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario both played the right shots at the right moments Friday and advanced to the semifinals of the $1-million Virginia Slims Championships at Madison Square Garden.

Top-seeded Graf beat Helena Sukova, 6-2, 6-1, and fourth-seeded Sanchez Vicario rallied from a 2-5 deficit in the first set, saving three set points along the way, to defeat Manuela Maleeva, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5).

Graf will meet third-seeded Gabriela Sabatini and Sanchez Vicario will face second-seeded Martina Navratilova for berths in the final.

The winner of the year-end championships will pocket $125,000.

The sprained ankle that has plagued Graf all week gets better each day, and she was also helped by the knowledge that she has not lost to Sukova since the two first met in 1983.

“She was just too good,” said Sukova, who lost her serve at 1-4 in the second set despite serving four aces. “She was hitting all the right shots, and I didn’t have any of the answers.”

Graf beat Sabatini in three sets in the semifinals of the U.S. Open in September, the last time the two played. Graf has won 17 of their 20 encounters, but 13 of those matches have gone to three sets.

Sanchez Vicario takes delight in saving her most risky, most difficult maneuvers for her most troubled moments.

In the French Open final last June--her first Grand Slam title and the first time a Spanish woman has won a Grand Slam event--Sanchez Vicario pulled numerous such tricks out of her hat during the final against Graf.

And at Wimbledon, facing match point down against Italian Raffaella Reggi in the third round, Sanchez Vicario tipped a drop shot from behind the baseline that slid out of play and so stunned her opponent that she never recovered and quickly lost the match.

That sort of play led Sanchez Vicario to victory over Maleeva. After Maleeva raced to 5-2, Sanchez went on the offensive. She held serve on four unforced errors by Maleeva and then broke at 15 with a spectacular point in which Sanchez Vicario raced down a drop shot, turned and chased Maleeva’s forehand into the open court and then turned around again and retrieved what Maleeva thought was a winning high backhand angle volley, finally ending the point with a perfect backhand down-the-line winner.

“I’m always trying shots like that,” Sanchez Vicario said. “Because, when I make great shots like that I have a lot of confidence and then I start to control the match.”

In the 10th game, Sanchez Vicario faced three set points, but saved them all when Maleeva first netted a backhand volley, then a backhand cross-court pass attempt and finally hit a backhand down-the-line wide. Sanchez Vicario then held when Maleeva hit another backhand long.

“I feel as if I made her a present today,” said Maleeva, 22. “I didn’t find the problem with her. It was with me. If I had played a bit more freely and a bit more relaxed, I would have won. I shouldn’t have lost that game at 4-1 when I had 40-0; and, after that, I just was not winning the last point of the games.”

“I don’t think she gave me a present,” said Sanchez Vicario, who won the second-set tiebreaker, 7-5, after the two played on serve throughout the set. “I ran down all the balls, and because of that I won the match.”