Navratilova Opens Things Up : Tennis: Her impressive victory over Seles at Manhattan Beach gives others hope before final Grand Slam event.

Eight weeks before her 36th birthday, Martina Navratilova beat the top player in the world, won her 160th tournament, passed $18 million in earnings and moved up to No. 3 in the rankings.

Then she turned her attention to new worlds to conquer.

So what’s left? Raft the Amazon on a pool float? Climb the Alps wearing tennis rackets for snow shoes? Win the U.S. Open a fifth time?

Hey, anything is possible, which is pretty close to the message Navratilova got across with her racket Sunday on the cement court of Manhattan Country Club, where she won the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles with an eerily simple, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Monica Seles.

As a result, the entire women’s field for the U.S. Open breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Open is still two weeks off, but the draw just opened up wide enough to drive an 18-wheeler full of possibilities through.

It was Navratilova’s first victory over a player ranked ahead of her in nine months, since she defeated Seles in the Virginia Slims of California last October in Oakland.

Navratilova’s explanation? “I’m just grooved,” she said.

Actually, it was the closest thing to a full-scale rout in this series featuring the two left-handers since Seles allowed Navratilova only two games in winning the Italian Open on clay two years ago.

But on this occasion, Seles was strangely ineffective and pinned the blame on two specific areas of her game--returning serves and hitting shots. Both are important, of course, but only if you expect to win.

Seles discovered early that she had no right to expect that result once she dropped her serve to start the match. Seles lost her serve two more times, hit 22 unforced errors, won nine points on her second serve and couldn’t touch Navratilova’s serve.

“I couldn’t find myself on the court today,” Seles said. “Nothing happened. It was just one of those days.”

Clearly, Navratilova had something to do with that. Serving better than she had all week, Navratilova did not face a break point, lost only four points on her first serve, made only 10 unforced errors and managed to impress even herself.

“If you had said to me before the match I would not face a break point, I never would have believed it,” Navratilova said. “I would have told you you were nuts.”

Seles normally hits returns with cold efficiency. But she got caught playing catch-up after dropping her serve in the first game of the match and never really recovered.

The first set was over in 33 minutes. It ended, appropriately enough, when Navratilova unloaded three big service winners for 40-15, then won the set when Seles mis-hit a second serve return wide.

“I had trouble returning against Arantxa (Sanchez Vicario in the semifinals), but this time I could not get away with it,” said Seles, who said she twisted her left ankle slightly in that match.

“I definitely was not running as fast as I usually do, but that’s not the reason I lost the match,” she said.

Navratilova got the only break she needed in the third game of the second set when Seles double-faulted to 0-30 and wound up losing on break point when her forehand pass sailed long.

Seles fell two breaks behind to 1-4 when Navratilova smacked a service return ankle-high and Seles sent a wobbly backhand wide.

Not long afterward, it was over. Serving for the match at 5-2, Navratilova showed a slight case of nerves when she double-faulted on the first point, but quickly regrouped. When Navratilova pumped an ace wide to Seles’ forehand side at match point to end it, the repercussions could be felt everywhere.

“Oh, wow, I beat the No. 1 player in the world,” Navratilova said as she slapped her own face as she met the press. “It just hit me.

“I told myself before the match, if I played her as well as I’ve been playing all week, I’d beat her.

“This feels pretty nice. This opens it up a little bit for the people who have been writing me off. ‘Whoa. Back up. Maybe I jumped the gun a little bit.’ You hear it, people yelling at you, or just the questions you are asked and how they are asked.

“But sometimes, those comments do give me a little shot in the arm, a little momentum.”

It’s possible there may be a rematch at the U.S. Open, where Seles defeated Navratilova in straight sets a year ago and prompted Navratilova to hint she might need to take stock of her career.

Right now, that stock is going up, like her ranking, now that Navratilova replaced Gabriela Sabatini in the No. 3 spot.

And as for Seles, in her position, anything short of winning a tournament can look like a slump. She has only herself to blame--10 tournaments, six titles, runner-up three times. “A slump, well, I don’t like to use that word (because) I’ll probably have a worse slump this year,” she said.

So what would she call it if it isn’t a slump?

“Nothing,” Seles said. “She just played better than I did.”

Navratilova has been making her opponents feel that way for a long time.

“I guess this answers some of the questions why I still play,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I still play? I can still do it.”

* MOONLIGHTING

Martina Navratilova used her summer job in TeamTennis as a successful tuneup for the Los Angeles tournament and U.S. Open. C8