Navratilova Injures Calf, Withdraws : Tennis: Second-seeded player’s calf muscle is injured during practice for San Diego tournament. She hopes to be ready for L.A. competition.

What tennis fans had hoped would be a showdown Sunday between the two top female players in the world, No. 1 Steffi Graf and No. 2 Martina Navratilova, won’t take place.

Navratilova suffered an injured calf muscle during a practice set Monday against doubles partner Gigi Fernandez, and withdrew from the Great American Bank tennis tournament Tuesday.

Navratilova said that although she is a quick healer, she is unsure whether she will be ready to play at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, beginning Aug. 13 in Manhattan Beach.

“I should be able to play next week,” Navratilova said, “but certainly not (Wednesday). I’m hoping three or four days. The doctor said two or three weeks, but I’m a little more optimistic. I’ll take it on a day-by-day basis.”

Navratilova said she was hitting a slice backhand and bent down low to hit it when her left foot slipped and she jammed her Achilles’ tendon.

“The ground is porous and normally my foot would have held,” she said, “but it didn’t. I was still getting used to the footing.”

And while she could laugh that she got the ball back, Navratilova said she was disappointed not to have the chance to play in San Diego, having played some team tennis here years ago.

“I was looking forward to playing here,” she said. “It’s a great schedule and a great warm-up for the U.S. Open.”

This was to be Navratilova’s first tournament since winning her record ninth singles title at Wimbledon, and she had planned on playing back-to-back events here and in LA to properly prepare her for the U.S. Open, beginning Aug. 27 in New York.

How much the injury will hamper her for the Open is unknown.

“It depends on how fast it heals and how much it will affect my preparation,” she said.

Navratilova, the second-seeded player, was to play Rancho Bernardo’s Rosalyn Fairbank-Nideffer in a first-round match Tuesday night. She was replaced by Luanne Spadea of Boca Raton, Fla., in singles, and by former San Diego State All-American Monique Javer and Spadea in doubles.

Fairbank-Nideffer made short work of Navratilova’s fill in, winning 7-5, 6-1, in front of 3,875.

The announcement followed top-seeded and defending champion Graf’s 6-0, 6-3 afternoon singles victory against Oceanside’s Stephanie Rehe, a wild-card entrant.

Graf said Navratilova’s withdrawal from the tournament will have no affect on how she prepares for the rest of the event.

“There’s no difference,” Graf said. “I’ll still prepare the same way to get myself ready for the next match.”

Third-seeded Zina Garrison, Wimbledon finalist this year and runner-up to Graf in this event last year, had her opening match delayed a day because of the flu, but Garrison’s coach, Sherwood Stewart, said she is in good health for her singles match today against Fernandez, which follows the 11 a.m. center court meeting of Patty Fendick and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere.

Garrison and Graf are in the same half of the draw, which means they would not meet in the final. Maleeva-Fragniere is the top-seeded player left in Navratilova’s half of the draw.

“She could have played singles (Tuesday),” Stewart said. “But she was a little sick Saturday night and I asked them if she could delay her first (singles) match a day.”

Had Navratilova advanced to tonight’s second round, Navratilova and Coronado’s Angelica Gavaldon would have played in the featured match on center court.

The loss of Navratilova is a mixed blessing for Gavaldon, who now meets Fairbank-Nideffer in a rematch of last year’s opening round, where Gavaldon was an upset winner.

Gavaldon certainly looked forward to playing Navratilova--she was thinking about it when she double faulted and blew her first match point against Claudia Porwik Monday night--but her chances of advancing past the second round have now improved dramatically.

“It would be a great experience to play Martina,” Gavaldon said earlier. “But everyone looks forward to playing a top player.”

Like Gavaldon, Rehe, formerly of Highland, Calif., was looking forward to playing a top player.

Unlike Navratilova, however, Graf is healthy--no longer suffering from sinus problems--and felt at full strength against Rehe, disposing of her 6-0, 6-3, while allowing Rehe a measly nine points in the first set.

Rehe managed to take a 3-2 lead in the second, but Graf quickly regained control, broke Rehe’s serve twice and held serve twice to play out the match.

It was Rehe’s first professional tournament since her back was seriously injured in a car accident in November 1988.

“She just played too well for me,” said Rehe, who was ranked 14th at the time of her accident. “I got a few points out of her and that was it.”

Lori McNeil of Houston, ranked 34th in the world, coaxed several more points out of Ann Grossman, but not enough to advance her to the next round. Grossman, ranked 52nd and a finalist here in 1988, defeated McNeil 6-1, 6-4 in a morning match.

Ohio’s Grossman, disgusted with her paltry rankings--she’s never been higher than 43--said she has been working hard on all parts of her game.

“Some parts of my game are so weak,” Grossman said. “My rankings have been in the 50s, the 40s and I just got sick of it. My next goal is to be in the top 25. To do that, I have to be more confident and consistent. that’s what I’m working on.”

Tennis Notes

Fifth-seeded Nathalie Tauziat of France, defeated Amy Schwartz of Florida, 6-1, 6-2. . . . In an earlier center court match, West Germany’s Eva Pfaff handed Hungry’s Andrea Temesvari a 6-2, 6-2 loss and eighth-seeded Rafaella Reggi of Monaco eliminated Lise Gregory of South Africa, 6-2, 6-2.