Graf and Navratilova Stagger Into Championship Match : Tennis: Top-seeded players overcome injuries and ailments to reach year-end showdown at Madison Square Garden.

The two players who entered the $1-million Virginia Slims Championships with the longest litany of excuses--Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova--are the last two players remaining in the draw and will face each other today in the year-end final at Madison Square Garden.

To get there, the top-seeded Graf struggled a bit to get past third-seeded Gabriela Sabatini, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, in the semifinals Saturday, and second-seeded Navratilova routinely dispatched fourth-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-2, 6-2, in 56 minutes.

Both Graf and Navratilova complained at the start of the week about an assortment of injuries, ranging from a severly sprained left ankle (Graf) to pulled groin and stomach muscles and a case of the flu (Navratilova).

And while both said they felt lucky to be in the final, they also proclaimed that they would be ready for the only three-out-of-five-set match they play all year.

“Everybody has been having some problems lately,” said Navratilova, who is playing in her 11th year-end final, having won seven. “I’m as prepared as anybody. I’ve worked really hard and I know I can go five sets if I have to.”

Navratilova looked especially healthy against Sanchez Vicario, the 17-year-old who spoiled Graf’s chance for a second consecutive Grand Slam when she beat her in the French Open final in June.

Navratilova lost her serve just once, in the opening game of the match, and continuously caught Sanchez Vicario off guard with her charge-at-all-costs style. She even rushed the net on Sanchez Vicario’s first serve and never allowed the Spaniard to get into a groove.

“My serve was just so much more powerful than hers, so I was able to come in and take advantage of her first serves,” Navratilova said. “If you stay on the baseline with her, you can get into trouble because she is very steady and can run down a lot of balls.”

It looked at the start as if Graf might have similar success against Sabatini. She allowed just four points on her serve in the first set, winning it in 30 minutes.

But then Sabatini, bolstered by the raucous support of nearly all of the 17,793 fans (the first sellout in the history of the event), picked up her game. She began lacing the lines with her returns of serve and won the second set with a perfect inside-out forehand return on her third set point.

Sabatini’s comeback was short-lived, however, as she lost her serve in the third game of the third set and never recovered. Graf closed out the match with a backhand cross-court pass that barely skimmed the top of the net.

“I’m just so happy to be in the final,” said Graf, who has won 85 of 87 matches this year (including two consecutive three-setters over Navratilova) and is currently riding a 40-match win streak since the French Open. “I still don’t know how I’m playing. I can’t move like the old Steffi, that’s for sure, but it’s getting better, I think. And being in the final, it’s a miracle somehow.”

In the doubles championship match, Navratilova teamed with Pam Shriver to defeat Soviets Larisa Savchenko and Natalia Zvereva, 6-3, 6-2, and claim their ninth Virginia Slims Championships title and 76th career victory.