Navratilova Wins, Faces Fernandez : Women: McNeil advances, but Davenport loses to Martinez.

It wasn’t like last year’s Wimbledon final, when Jana Novotna could have used an emergency tracheotomy and a clean hankie on Centre Court, but it was close. That was a choke. Tuesday, there were only gagging sounds.

This time, Novotna lost to Martina Navratilova in the quarterfinals, 5-7, 6-0, 6-1. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to suggest beforehand that Navratilova was too old and too slow to win a 10th Wimbledon singles championship. So what if it might have been true at the time?

“Today, my God, she played well,” said Novotna, the No. 5 seed from the Czech Republic. “I can only congratulate her, and it’s what I did after the match.”

Fourth-seeded Navratilova advances to Thursday’s semifinals, her 17th in 22 visits to Wimbledon. She will face Gigi Fernandez, who beat Zina Garrison-Jackson, 6-4, 6-4. The unseeded Fernandez, best known for her doubles play, will make her first appearance in the singles semifinals of a Grand Slam event.

Completing the other side of the draw is unseeded American Lori McNeil, who defeated Latvia’s Larisa Neiland, 6-3, 6-4. McNeil will play third-seeded Conchita Martinez of Spain, who ended American teen-ager Lindsay Davenport’s Wimbledon run, 6-2, 6-7 (7-4), 6-3.

Navratilova began her match with a 7-1 record against Novotna, but that loss had occurred in last year’s Wimbledon semifinals.

Early on, it looked as if Novotna was going to produce another victory. She won the first set and did so by serving an ace. Navratilova, playing in her last Wimbledon as a singles player, looked nervous and vulnerable.

“You sort of have to hold and get into the match and I was on my heels already,” Navratilova said.

But this was the new and improving Navratilova, not the one Novotna saw the week before Wimbledon, or even during her early matches at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Back then, Navratilova, 37, still was making the transition from clay courts to grass. She was a mess.

“I was trying to slide the first two or three days and tripping and falling down,” she said. “I looked like a fool.”

Now look at her. Navratilova didn’t lose a game in the second set and led, 3-0, in the third before Novotna finally held serve. By then it was too late. Navratilova couldn’t be stopped.

As it turns out, the most troublesome part of the match--not counting that first set--occurred when her bangs wouldn’t cooperate. So during the second changeover in the first set, Navratilova requested a pair of scissors.

“And I did a little butcher’s job on my hair,” she said.

Meanwhile, Novotna did a little butcher’s job on the match. Sure, there was the ace to win the first set, but after that, nothing when it came to the big points.

“I missed everything by inches,” she said. “I played unbelievable shots to get to 15-40 on Martina’s serve, (but) when I had to play the big shot, I never made it, or when I hit it . . . .”

Then her voice trailed off, as if no more explanation were needed. She was right, of course.

As for trying to explain Navratilova’s success in her 22nd Wimbledon, why bother? Navratilova isn’t.

“This is reality,” she said. “This is not a dream. I’m living it.”

The same can be said of McNeil and Fernandez. McNeil reached the semifinals of the 1987 U.S. Open and upset top-seeded Steffi Graf in last week’s first round here, but that about does it for previous Grand Slam moments to remember. Not that she hasn’t tried. McNeil holds the record for most consecutive Grand Slam events entered, 35.

In previous years, McNeil arrived in Europe weeks and weeks ahead of time, then couldn’t wait to catch the next plane back to the States. That was before her attitude adjustment.

“But this time I came over and I had a different outlook coming into Wimbledon,” she said. “I didn’t put so many expectations on myself and I just came over a lot later to Europe. So that’s helped a lot. I’m not ready to go home yet.”

Neither is Fernandez, who suffered a pulled hamstring late in her match against Garrison-Jackson.

“And the last match was my quad(riceps),” she said. “My legs are taking a beating.”

So are her opponents, to say nothing of her reputation as a doubles specialist.

“Doubles is very important to me,” said Fernandez, who along with Natasha Zvereva has already won the French Open and Australian Open this season. “It’s more important than singles, actually.”

Now she faces her good friend Navratilova. Both live in Aspen, Colo., and often train together. And until Tuesday, Fernandez was pulling for Navratilova to win that 10th singles title.

“But now I have to play her, so I have to kind of forget about all that for a match,” Fernandez said.

Wimbledon Notes

Ninth-seeded Lindsay Davenport of Murrieta Valley High met reporters after her singles defeat by Conchita Martinez on Centre Court. “I was struggling just keeping balls in,” Davenport said of the early going. “I’m starting, like, ‘I’m going to get killed on Centre Court.’ ” She recovered in time to win the second set, before falling in the third, 6-3. Martinez has made her second consecutive Wimbledon semifinal and Davenport goes home. But not without making a prediction on the women’s singles: Navratilova. . . . Lori McNeil is 2-1 vs. Martinez.