The Light Has Almost Gone Out on Capriati’s Chances : Wimbledon: Match is suspended because of darkness with Sabatini leading, 5-3, in the third set. Seles, Navratilova and Graf advance.

What did it take to end Gabriela Sabatini’s match with Jennifer Capriati at Wimbledon Tuesday?

A big serve?

A stunning volley?

Backhand? Forehand?

All wrong. Blame it on the night.

They called it a day at 9:01 p.m. on a drippy Tuesday with the sky about the same color as the Thames, which is so darkly polluted you could develop a roll of film in it.

So with Capriati hanging onto her fourth-round match by the tips of her brightly painted red fingernails, referee Alan Mills stopped play because of poor light with Sabatini leading, 6-1, 3-6, 5-3, and getting ready to serve.

Weather permitting, they will resume play today, by which time one or the other might remember the location of the net and actually end the women’s quarterfinal round that concluded quietly on all other fronts, with one notable exception.

One of the three other women’s quarterfinals ended, not with a whimper, but with a grunt--provided, of course, by Monica Seles, who power-stroked her way past Nathalie Tauziat, 6-1, 6-3, but failed to shed controversy as easily. Nine-time Wimbledon winner Martina Navratilova meets no-time winner Seles in the semifinals. The 35-year-old left-hander dumped Katerina Maleeva, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2).

Seles got there with what would have been a routine straight-set wipeout if Tauziat hadn’t complained to chair umpire David Crymble that Seles was grunting too loud late in the second set.

“She screamed a lot, a lot,” Tauziat said. “I couldn’t really listen to the ball when she hit the ball. That’s why I asked the umpire, can she scream less than she screamed during the match.”

Seles, who didn’t want to talk about the grunting before relenting, said she doesn’t grunt on purpose.

“If it bothers somebody--I’m really trying to get rid of it,” Seles said. “You don’t know how hard I’m trying.

“But I don’t think I’m going to win a match because I’m grunting. . . . But it’s part of my game, and I would like to get rid of it because people just ask me so many questions about it and I don’t think it’s fair to talk so much about it, especially since I’m not the only player doing it.”

Whereas Tauziat’s sensibilities were disturbed, Steffi Graf seemed completely at ease in her straight-set blowout of Natalia Zvereva. Graf romped, 6-3, 6-1, and now waits to see if she will get Sabatini or Capriati in the semifinals.

After struggling against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, each of whom won sets against her, Graf surprised even herself by breezing past Zvereva.

“It was a little bit easier than I expected,” Graf said.

At the same time, Graf said, the Wimbledon experience is turning just a little bit sour, although it has nothing to do with what’s happening on the court. The London tabloid press is starting to get to her, Graf said, after two publications had run pictures of the house she is renting here.

“People were coming up to my house until 11 in the night, you know, ringing my door, knocking on the door, coming up to watch us in the car.

“Why has that been happening? I think it was very bad of the journalists to put down the address of the house because people have been calling, have been knocking on the door, walking around the garden, sleeping in the garden.

“What kind of business is that anyway?”

Navratilova has gone about her own business with a degree of skill that seems to have established her as at least a mild threat to beat Seles and have a chance to go on to the finals and win a 10th Wimbledon.

“You know, I’ve got nothing to lose,” Navratilova said. “I mean, I’m the underdog here. If you are going on history, I’m the big favorite, but if you go on this year, last year, Monica’s No. 1. She hasn’t lost a Grand Slam for a while and she seems to be pretty much at home on grass.”

That much is debatable, although Seles’ streak of Grand Slam victories stands at five, not counting last year’s Wimbledon, which she did not enter.