Meskhi Sweeps No. 1 Sabatini in Major Upset : Tennis: Ranked 23rd in the world, she takes only 1:21 to oust Mazda Classic’s top-seeded player.

It’s up to you, New York, New York.

Gabriela Sabatini leaves today for the U.S. Open. Come again?

Ticket-holders for the semifinals and final of the Mazda Tennis Classic be advised: Sabatini and Jennifer Capriati will not be meeting for the championship at noon Sunday.

All in a summertime stunner at the La Costa Resort & Spa on Thursday night, soft-spoken Leila Meskhi from the Republic of Georgia gave Sabatini a 1-hour, 21-minute tennis lesson and a 6-0, 6-3 loss.

“I probably didn’t play enough matches,” said Sabatini, who looked sharp as a tack in a match she won without giving up a game two nights before.

In three previous meetings, Sabatini, the No. 4 player in the world and top-seeded here, hadn’t dropped a set to unseeded Meskhi, ranked 23rd in the world.

Asked if this was her best match of the year, Meskhi hesitated and said “Yes.”

Asked if this was her best match of her life , she smiled and said, “Maybe.”

“I played my best tennis, and she played worse than she usually does,” Meskhi said.

Sabatini’s fabulous backhand? Absent.

The powerful forehand? Missing.

In fact, nothing in Sabatini’s repertoire worked.

“I lost my concentration at times,” said Sabatini, who forced four of the games in the first set to deuce but sprayed a battery of shots long, wide or short. “She played a good match.”

Sabatini hadn’t lost a 6-0 set since the semifinals of the 1990 Lipton International, where she did so to Steffi Graf.

She said repeatedly that she was hurt by a lack of tournament play--before her opener here she had been idle since Wimbledon, 51 days without a real match. Still, she said she felt well prepared.

“It’s hard to come back after you’ve been gone a long time,” she said. “You have to play more matches. It’s understandable. I knew I’d had a tough match after my first one back. This is not that bad.”

There wasn’t one spectacular shot Meskhi hurt her opponent with, she simply hung in there longer than Sabatini.

“The first three games of the first set were very tough for me,” she said. “But after I went up 3-0, I felt very comfortable.”

Meskhi on Saturday will meet the winner of today’s Conchita Martinez-Ann Grossman.

Sabatini’s off to the Big Apple.

“The U.S. Open is a completely different tournament, it’s a completely different atmosphere. I love to play in New York,” she said.

Earlier in the day, Grossman of Grove City, Ohio, was two games away from beating 10th-ranked Jana Novotna of Czechoslovakia, when Novotna retired because of leg cramps.

In the final second-round match of the tournament to be played, Grossman was leading, 4-6, 6-4, 4-2 at the time Novotna approached the umpire’s chair.

The players had been on the court, where temperatures reached close to 100 degrees, for 2 hours, 24 minutes.

“The dry heat is very different,” Novotna said.

The only time Grossman, ranked 57th, had defeated a top-10 player was in 1988, when she turned back Russia’s Natalia Zvereva.

She rebounded a 4-2 deficit in the second set for her victory Wednesday.

“It has been a long time, and I’ve been through a lot, so it makes it more special,” Grossman said.

The turning point of the match came in the seventh game of the second set, with Grossman serving. After going back to deuce a dozen times, Grossman finally held, easily broke Novotna and won the next two games as Novotna started to wilt.

“Down 4-2, it finally started clicking,” she said. “I started getting better and better. When I won that game to make it 4-4, it totally changed the rhythm of the match. I was getting more confident and I think she was getting more scared and didn’t know what to do.”

Novotna had never retired from a match, although she has suffered silently with severe cramps and decided not to repeat that mistake.

“I decided when I get to a stage where I can’t move, I stop,” she said. “You can hurt yourself. It’s not worth it.”

Grossman looked concerned, then disappointed when the umpire announced Novotna had retired.

“I stuck with it and it worked out,” Grossman said. “I wish she hadn’t defaulted. . . . But a win’s a win. I’ll take it.”

Zina Garrison wasn’t as gracious. Her 6-1, 6-0 trouncing of Monique Javer took 58 minutes, not exactly prime preparation for next week’s Open.

“I thought it would be much tougher,” she said. “It was too easy. My concentration started to wander.”

Tennis Notes

Calling Clyde: Zina Garrison’s brief hitting session with Clyde Drexler in Barcelona created the kind of commotion she can live with. “I need to play Clyde more often,” she said. “I got a lot of publicity out of that.” Garrison said if basketball hadn’t worked out, he’d be good enough for the men’s pro tour. “At that height? He’s quick and he can jump.” . . . Tickets for Saturday’s semifinals and Sunday’s final are sold out.

Classic Highlights

Center court, 12:30 p.m.: No. 3 Conchita Martinez vs. Ann Grossman; followed by No. 7 Zina Garrison vs. No. 2 Jennifer Capriati; followed by Sabine Appelmans-Judith Wiesner or No. 3 Jill Hetherington-Kathy Rinaldi vs. No. 2 Conchita Martinez-Marcedes Paz.

Center court, 7 p.m.: No. 6 Nathalie Tauziat vs. No. 4 Anke Huber; followed by No. 1 Jana Novotna-Larisa Savchenko-Neiland vs. No. 4 Zina Garrison-Robin White.

Site: La Costa Resort & Spa.

Tickets: For information, call 438-5683. Tickets available for morning and evening sessions. Prices range from $12 to $28. Tickets for Saturday’s semifinals and Sunday’s final are sold out.