It’s No. 1 vs. No. 2 for Women’s Title : Tennis: Graf defeats Novotna and Sanchez Vicario downs Sabatini in U.S. Open semifinals.

In two tense women’s semifinals at the U.S. Open on Friday, when the going got tough and the collars got tight, Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario were able to draw unimpeded breaths and play unimpeded tennis.

And so today’s final will match the top players in this tournament’s seedings, and in the world. No. 1 Graf of Germany, already the winner of 15 Grand Slam event titles, will be going after another against No. 2 Sanchez Vicario of Spain, already the winner of two.

Graf played with her usual iron will in a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic, the seventh-seeded player here. Graf trailed in the second set, 2-5 and 15-40, and fought back into the set and, eventually, the match.

Sanchez Vicario, beaten by Graf in this year’s Australian final but the winner of the French after Mary Pierce had upset Graf, also steeled herself to the tension and the windy conditions on Stadium Court in a 6-1, 7-6 (8-6) victory over Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, the No. 8-seeded player here. Sanchez Vicario lost two match points at 5-4 of the second set, then fought off a set point for Sabatini in the tiebreaker before closing out the match with a reflex lob volley that Sabatini, strangely, chased down and tried to return by hitting the ball between her legs, her back to the net.

“I could have just hit it normal but I just went for it,” Sabatini said.

If this was an unusual way to end a Grand Slam semifinal match, or any match for that matter, then these semifinals had lots of unusual elements.

Novotna seemed to be in fine shape to win the second set, when Graf stepped to the service line at 2-5 and 15-40 and spun in a 79-m.p.h. second serve. Novotna netted it. At 30-40, Novotna hit a forehand long. After two deuces, Novotna got set point No. 3, and hit a lob long.

When questioned about her nerves in that situation she said: “I missed the forehand return, then I make the easy error, but after that, she passed me, she did great. There was nothing I could do.”

Then Novotna, serving at 5-3, was broken quickly at 15-40, putting Graf back on serve. Graf accomplished the break by starting the game with a net-cord passing-shot winner and got the 15-all point with an incredible running forehand cross-court passing shot that left Novotna so devastated that she netted two forehands for the break.

Soon, similarities of the 1993 Novotna-Graf Wimbledon final began coming to mind. In that memorable match, Novotna, serving in the third set at 4-1 and 40-30, double-faulted that point and appeared to fall apart the rest of the way, eventually crying on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent during the awards ceremony.

Here, serving at 5-5, Novotna hit a second serve into the net at 74 m.p.h, got passed by Graf for love-30, and followed with two more double faults, the second a feeble shank off the frame of her racket that had so little velocity it didn’t even register on the speed gun.

“I was not getting tense at all,” Novotna said. “I think it was very windy conditions today.”

Graf, apparently able to get more of that wind down her throat in key situations, then served out the match--after Novotna, fighting hard to the end, saved one match point before succumbing to yet another big inside-out forehand by Graf.

Graf, asked if thoughts of that ’93 Wimbledon final had come to mind while she watched Novotna hit three double faults in one game, said, “Like when guys are always saying choking, you know, I don’t think it happened. Definitely not until 5-all, but OK, she makes three double faults, that is really difficult.” A similar tension problem appeared to affect Sabatini. She hit nine double faults, made 48 unforced errors and won only 34% of the points on her second serve.

Nerves seemed to bother her most seriously in the tiebreaker, when she hit a 62-m.p.h. first serve on set point at 6-5, then followed that with a 67-m.p.h. first serve when she lost the 6-5 point. Both times, Sanchez Vicario used the soft serves to take control of the point and hit backhand winners.

And then, there was the ill-fated match point, the between-the-legs shot by Sabatini that looked like something the Jensen brothers would try out on Court 22 purely for crowd reaction. Sanchez Vicario’s reaction was quite simple.

“I would not do that at match point,” she said. “Or any other time.”

Tennis Notes

In one of the strangest endings to an important moment in Grand Slam doubles, the top-seeded women’s team of Gigi Fernandez and Natalie Zvereva, seeking a sweep of the Grand Slam titles this year, lost in the semifinals to the unseeded team of Katerina Maleeva and Robin White, 7-6 (7-2), 1-6, 6-3. Maleeva was serving at 5-3 and 30-love of the final game when the rains came. After about a 1 1/2-hour delay, they returned, and Maleeva got the game to 40-love before Zvereva and Fernandez fought back to 40-30. Then, Maleeva hit a first serve near the line, Fernandez shanked a return that went barely two feet in front of her--and stood stunned as the line judge called the serve good. Last year, Zvereva and Fernandez also won the first three Grand Slam doubles titles of the year and then lost in the semifinals of the U.S. Open.

Meilen Tu, the junior player from Northridge who won a spot in the main draw and lost in a tough first-round match, got through to the semifinals of the junior girls’ draw. Tu, who won the U.S. Tennis Assn.’s girls’ 18 title earlier in the year to gain the wild-card spot in the main draw, beat Tara Snyder, 0-6, 6-4, 6-4. Tu, of Granada Hills High, who won’t turn 17 until January, is seeded fourth among the junior girls here.

* MEN’S SEMIFINALS

Unseeded Andre Agassi continues his spirited run at the U.S. Open today when he plays Todd Martin. C11