TENNIS WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS : A Finally Perfect Seles Will Face Navratilova

It’s getting pretty obvious that Monica Seles is in a rut. Take shopping, for instance. She wears only black. On her last shopping trip, she bought seven black turtlenecks and made her mother mad.

“She always says, ‘Why do you wear black?’ and it is true . . . but I just feel the most comfortable in black,” Seles said.

Seles treads in a similar rut on the court. On Saturday, she defeated Gabriela Sabatini in the Virginia Slims Championships to reach her 16th consecutive 1991 final, or every tournament she has played this year.

It took 47 minutes for Seles to beat Sabatini, 6-1, 6-1, before a sellout crowd of 18,229 at Madison Square Garden, where Seles will play Martina Navratilova in today’s best-of-five final.

Navratilova kept her record against Jana Novotna spotless in five matches with a 6-1, 6-4 victory in 55 minutes, including a wrenching second set low-lighted by six consecutive service breaks.

Sabatini’s looked absolutely inspired in comparison, even though it represented a total dismantling of No. 3 by No. 1. And it was all over before you could say turtleneck, much to Sabatini’s chagrin.

“I didn’t have time for a chance to lose my confidence,” she said.

Sabatini shook her head when asked if she could have done anything to change the outcome.

“Not pretty much,” she said. “The way she played today, I don’t know if someone can beat her.”

Afterward, a buoyant Seles showed up in the interview room wearing, of course, a black turtleneck. Since Seles won three of the four Grand Slams this year, nine tournaments in all and more than $2 million in prize money, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find fault with her.

But Seles herself found one area to harp on: her weight. She said she plans to train in the off-season and get ready for the Australian Open.

“I am slowly going to try to build up,” Seles said. “See a little muscle more than right now. It is just fat. And that is what I am just going to try to do--become a good athlete.”

Women’s tennis may have had no greater athlete than Navratilova, who at 35 certainly qualifies as its most enduring. Navratilova took a 6-1, 3-0 lead before she had a mental lapse, apparently forgetting how to serve.

Luckily for her, Novotna was suffering from similar amnesia. Neither player held serve the last six games of the match, which Navratilova mercifully ended with a forehand pass down the line.

She even picked up a new fan in Seles. “It’s incredible when you think how old she is and how well she is playing,” Seles said.

“Physically she is stronger right now than any of the women’s players out there,” said Seles, who will turn 18 in two weeks.

“She is 35. We are here in most of our early 20s. It’s pretty embarrassing to say that.”

Tennis Notes

Martina Navratilova, who won a weeklong contest when her 1990 Wimbledon victory was chosen the most dramatic moment in women’s tennis in balloting by fans, will donate the $5,000 first prize from General Foods to the Magic Johnson Foundation for HIV research.

Navratilova teamed with Pam Shriver for a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory over Gigi Fernandez and Novotna in the doubles final. Fernandez and Novotna blew eight break points at 3-3 of the second set in a 10-deuce game. It was the eighth Virginia Slims Championships title for Navratilova and Shriver.