They’re Young, but It’s Old Hat : Women’s final: Graf has won 20 of their 29 meetings. Sabatini has taken the last five.

Now that Jennifer Capriati has lost and Monica Seles doesn’t want to be found, they can get down to the business of another Graf-Sabatini showdown.

These veterans of tennis wars, ages 22 and 21, respectively, will play in the Wimbledon women’s final today on Centre Court expecting few surprises. Steffi Graf of Germany and Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina have seen each other on the tennis courts of the world so much that they ought to be able to share a passport.

Besides being frequent doubles partners, they have played each other 29 times since 1985. At the time, Graf was 16 and already an ’84 Olympic gold medalist in the demonstration version of the sport in Los Angeles, and Sabatini was 15 and already a veteran of one French Open semifinal.

Graf has won 20 of their matchups. But that is only part of the statistical comparison:

--Sabatini has won the past five matches against Graf, and six of the past eight.

--This will be their third Grand Slam final, with Graf taking the U.S. Open in 1988. Sabatini won at Flushing Meadow, N.Y., in ‘90, her only Grand Slam title.

--Graf has nine Grand Slam titles, two here, but none since the 1990 Australian tournament. In her most recent Grand Slam appearance, the French Open, she went out meekly in the semifinals to Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-0, 6-2.

--Of their 29 matches, 26 have been either a semifinal or a final, and 16 have gone to three sets.

--In the Golden Slam year of 1988, when Graf swept the Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Olympic titles, she wrapped it all up in the Seoul Games by beating Sabatini in the final.

This year at Wimbledon, when Seles announced her mysterious injury and promptly disappeared, Graf was moved up to the No. 1-seeded spot and Sabatini to No. 2. And their statistics have been nearly identical, Graf losing no sets and 23 games, and Sabatini no sets and 34 games. They are currently ranked Nos. 2 and 3 in the world, and today’s result won’t change that either way.

Unlike their statistics, their personalties contrast.

Sabatini seemed to genuinely enjoy last Sunday here, when they had a general-admission day to catch up on matches pushed back by the rain. She had one of the matches on Centre Court, and when the uncharacteristic Wimbledon crowd did the wave, she laughed and seemed to enjoy the fans’ fun. When she took off her sweat suit to start play, lots of males in the crowd whistled, and she laughed about that, too.

When she ousted Capriati, the 15-year-old favorite of America and now England, Sabatini played a gutsy yet loose match against the teen-ager who had previously put so much pressure on veteran Martina Navratilova that Navratilova double-faulted on match point. In fact, since Sabatini’s U.S. Open victory, which showcased her newfound ability to play serve-and-volley tennis when necessary, Sabatini has been a different, more relaxed and more successful player.

Graf, who was ranked No. 1 from late August of 1987 until Seles took over this spring, went through well-documented problems with her concentration after European tabloids had a field day with stories about her father, Peter, having an affair. The bigger those headlines became, the worse Graf’s tennis was.

Graf says that is all behind her, and she has swept through her matches here like the Graf of old, marching around like somebody in control of her game and destiny. She doesn’t seem to be having quite as much fun as Sabatini, but then she didn’t get to play in front of the wave, either.

Both, of course, are veterans of the news conference game. Neither would ever say anything in public to give the other an edge.

Of playing Graf in the final, Sabatini said: “I think she is playing with a lot of confidence, and I’m going to have to probably be more aggressive playing against her.”

And of playing Sabatini, Graf said: “I think I have to go out there and go for my shots. . . . I just have to attack her second serve definitely on grass. It just kicks up, and I have to take advantage of that.”