Graf Takes It on Chin in Defeat : French Open: German has 51 unforced errors in loss to Sanchez Vicario. Seles pours it on in victory over Sabatini.

Weirdness took control of the French Open on a rainy Thursday, when Monica Seles won eight of the last nine games against the hottest player on the tour, and the best shot by a member of the Steffi Graf family was made by father Peter Graf, who backhanded a spectator on the side of the head.

Add it all up and it was a strange, strange day for women’s tennis, which wants headlines, but probably not the way it’s getting them.

The worst defeat of Steffi Graf’s career, a shocking 6-0, 6-2 semifinal drubbing by Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, was unexpected enough, but it came close to being upstaged by a bizarre incident in the stands involving the elder Graf and a fan named Jim Levee.

Steffi Graf trailed, 5-0, in the first set when Peter Graf left his seat in the players’ box and walked past Levee. Words were exchanged, and Graf struck Levee with a backhand before hurrying up the stairs.

Levee, well-known in women’s tennis circles, was at one time a financial supporter of Steffi Graf’s tennis career, but later switched his support to Seles.

On the court, the fight was also one-sided. A rain delay--43 minutes--took nearly as long as the 54-minute match, which was shortened considerably by Graf’s inability to hit a ball on the court.

Graf made 51 unforced errors, held serve twice and felt generally miserable about the worst performance of her career.

“It’s been a long, long, long time since it happened, and I hope it’s going to be a long, long, long time before it happens again,” Graf said.

It may be an equally long time before anything as interesting happens in the players’ box. Graf said her mother told her what had occurred between her father and Levee.

Peter Graf told Levee, “Well done today,” and patted him on the shoulder, according to Steffi Graf’s version. However, Levee had jumped up and said, “He hit me, you saw it,” and was later overheard telling Graf’s mother and coach that he would bring bodyguards to Wimbledon.

All that was left was for Sanchez Vicario to put Graf away, which she did when one final backhand drifted wide on match point.

Sanchez Vicario threw her racket, caught it nimbly and retreated to the locker room, adding this moment to her memory of another huge upset of Graf. That was on this court in the 1989 final, when she upended Graf to win the French Open.

Seles, last year’s winner, needed only to weather the weather to advance to the final with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Gabriela Sabatini.

Stopped twice by rain delays totaling 1 hour 44 minutes, Seles came back on the court after the second interruption with the match tied, 4-4.

Her biggest problem? Seles did not have another dry shirt, so she shivered in a wet one and delivered to Sabatini the fourth defeat in her last 44 matches.

“It’s tough, I’m cold, I had to serve wearing a wet shirt at 4-all,” Seles said. “It kind of made me move a little bit more.”

She secured the second set in 28 minutes. “I didn’t think it was that easy,” said Seles, who certainly made it look that way.

Meanwhile, in her father’s absence, Graf was left alone to give her view of the incident.

She offered only a few words: “I have no idea, really, and I don’t care.”