High-Five for Seles in Final : Tennis: Teen-ager outlasts Sabatini in first five-set women’s match since 1901.

The last important women’s tennis match of the year lasted until almost, oh, the first of next year before Monica Seles ended the first five-set women’s match since 1901 with one final blistering backhand into the corner that Gabriela Sabatini could not track down.

Match time could have been kept by calendar instead of a clock, but after 3 hours 47 minutes Sunday, Seles outlasted Sabatini, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, to win the Virginia Slims Championships, her second major title of 1990.

The winner’s reaction? “It was so long out there,” Seles said.

But it took a while before Seles said so long to Sabatini. Seles, the 16-year-old Yugoslav who lives in Florida and who won the French Open in June, came from a set down to take the fourth set on a critical double fault by Sabatini, then out-hammered her 20-year-old counterpart in a historic fifth set.

The last five-set match in women’s tennis was 89 years ago in the final of the U.S. Nationals when Elizabeth Moore defeated Myrtle McAteer, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-2. Five-set matches were abolished in 1902 and the format was not revived until the Virginia Slims Championships began in 1984.

However, Seles said she did not feel tired after playing five sets. No, it was something else.

“I was getting hungry,” Seles said. “I didn’t have my lunch.”

But if Seles missed her meal, she didn’t miss her paycheck. Seles collected a check for $671,851, which includes $350,000 and the remainder from bonus pools.

Seles won nine tournaments and $1.6 million in 1990, which probably means if she ever gets lost in Bloomingdale’s again, as she did last week, at least she will have a nice way to spend the time looking for her parents.

Sabatini, who knocked off No. 1-ranked Steffi Graf in Saturday’s semifinals, may have deserved a better outcome against Seles, but seemed strangely content to remain on the baseline and trade groundstrokes late in the match.

There wasn’t much she could do about that, said Sabatini, who attacked the net consistently against Graf.

“Today I play more from the baseline,” Sabatini said. “Monica didn’t give me many chances. It was the only way I could beat her.”

The key game in the match occurred in the fourth set when Sabatini served in the 10th game, down 4-5. But she double-faulted to 15-30 and double-faulted again at 30-40 to allow Seles to force a fifth set.

Until then, it looked as if Seles’ best chance already had come and gone. Seles led, 5-4, in the second set and seemed on the verge of taking a two-set lead, but won only one point as she served for the set.

Sabatini’s touch volley winner broke Seles and evened the set at 5-5. Sabatini held for 6-5, then broke Seles again for one set all.

By then, Seles said she was becoming a bit discouraged.

“I just tried to forget what happened in the second set,” Seles said. “I just kept telling myself ‘You got to take chances, and then I just went for a lot more shots.”

It probably also helped that Sabatini made 15 of her 57 unforced errors in the fifth set. But even more vital to Seles’ cause was how she attacked Sabatini’s second serve.

Sabatini won only 22 points on 66 second serves.

“The key was who might attack the serve more,” Seles said.

Sabatini, who picked up a total of $322,529 for the day for her runner-up finish as well from the bonus pool, ended the year with $973,062 in prize money.

“It’s hard to say what is happening inside,” Sabatini said. “All I was caring about was the match, each point. I felt like I could play forever.”

They almost did.

* AGASSI WINS: Andre Agassi defeats top-ranked Stefan Edberg in the ATP finals. C26.