It Serves Her Right: Navratilova Wins : Women’s tennis: Maleeva blown away by three aces in key game. Sukova defeats Frazier in other semifinal.

As turning points go, Katerina Maleeva had no trouble identifying her own.

Could it be those three consecutive aces Martina Navratilova blew past her, the ones that nearly sand-blasted the paint from the service line?

Well, yes, Maleeva agreed, grinning wryly.

“I guess after those three aces, this is the point when I think things change a lot,” Maleeva said.

Navratilova turned a close match into a rout by jamming three aces into a single game to defeat Maleeva, 7-6 (7-2), 6-1, and reach the 204th final of her career.

Her opponent today for the championship of the Virginia Slims of Indian Wells will be Helena Sukova, a longtime nemesis who might discover the same thing that Maleeva did Saturday.

At 33, 13 years older than Maleeva, Navratilova is still an imposing presence, which came immediately to Maleeva’s attention about the same time Navratilova took her silver racket out of her bag.

Navratilova played volleys, she played overheads, she played drop shots and she played on the run. About the only thing she didn’t play was long--only 78 minutes, which is long for a coffee break but short for a semifinal match.

Sukova didn’t need a tiebreaker to beat 17-year-old Amy Frazier, 7-5, 6-4, and reach the final, but she didn’t need much of a serve, either. There were 14 service breaks in the thoroughly fractured semifinal.

The Bulgarian flag was flying high above Stadium Court for Maleeva, who had complained about its absence Friday, but it was Navratilova’s trio of aces that caused it to ripple.

Moments before, Navratilova’s game was at half staff.

Her record of not losing a set in 12 matches this year appeared in jeopardy. Maleeva led the first set, 6-5, and already had two service breaks.

Navratilova must have been really worried.

“Not really,” she said.

So Navratilova fired three aces at Maleeva, tied the set at 6-6, won the tiebreaker like snapping off a backhand volley and rolled through the second set as if she were holding a lift ticket for one of the ski slopes back home in Aspen.

“It was time to turn it up,” Navratilova said. “It was time to turn it up a notch.”

Navratilova finished with six aces and Maleeva finished with a renewed respect for her opponent.

“It’s one thing to watch her and another thing to play her,” Maleeva said of Navratilova. “That’s why she is a big player. When she gets in trouble, she knows how to get out of it.

“I was thinking I was playing against Navratilova and I had to do something more. This is something you don’t have to do, but you think you do. You see her out there and you think about who she is.”

Sukova and Frazier put on a clinic on how not to serve.

It might have been different for Frazier if she had succeeded when she served for the first set at 5-4. Instead, Frazier was broken at love.

But failing to hold serve was the order of the day. Sukova, who lost her serve six times, said she wasn’t surprised by what happened.

“She just hit great winners off serve and on the other hand, her serve is not so strong,” Sukova said.

Frazier agreed: “I think I can return well enough, but my serve is the weakest part of my game.”

Other than that, the postmatch comments of both players did not seem to reflect what actually occurred. Maybe they were trying to block out an unseemly match in which both Sukova and Frazier had more unforced errors than winners.

Said Sukova: “I don’t think I came in to the net any more or less in the second set than in the first.”

Actually, Sukova made 28 approaches in the first set and six in the second set.

Said Frazier: “On the big points, she played them better than I did.”

Actually, Frazier saved three set points at 5-6 in the first set.

Said Frazier: “I don’t think I missed any drop volleys in the second set.”

Actually, she missed three in one game in the second set.

But Navratilova never misses a chance to try to avenge a defeat to Sukova, even though it happened six years ago. Sukova broke Navratilova’s 74-match winning streak with a three-set victory in the 1984 Australian Open that also ended Navratilova’s run of consecutive Grand Slam singles titles at six.

“Of all the matches in my career, that’s the one I’d like to have back,” Navratilova said. “I blew it. The pressure was just overbearing. I’ll never be able to pay her back.”

Navratilova is 22-4 against Sukova but has lost two of their last three meetings, including a 6-2, 3-6, 9-7, loss at the 1989 Australian Open when Navratilova twice served for the match.

But Navratilova said she is a much-improved player now.

“I’m playing much, much better, so we’ll see,” she said. “Sukova has nothing to lose. She smiles when she makes it in or out. So we’ll see. You know you can lose to just about anybody out there.”