U.S. OPEN NOTES : No Comeback for Fernandez This Time

Mary Joe Fernandez left the U.S. Open healthy, if not completely happy. Her winning streak here was ended Tuesday in the quarterfinals by Gabriela Sabatini. The ninth-seeded Sabatini won, 6-1, 6-3.

Fernandez, seeded 14th, had upset Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the fourth round and has been enjoying a relatively injury-free summer. The 24-year-old from Miami had hoped she might catch Sabatini on an off day as she had at another Grand Slam tournament two years ago.

Neither player has been allowed to forget their meeting in the quarterfinals of the 1993 French Open. Sabatini had a set lead and was up, 5-1, in the second set. Fernandez said at that point she was only intent on extending the match past one hour.

What she did was save five match points and came back to beat Sabatini, 1-6, 7-6, 10-8, in 3 hours 36 minutes.

Shades of that match emerged when Fernandez broke to get to 3-5 in the second set. That service break symbolized every break Fernandez has not gotten in a career marked by injury and illness.

Fernandez was hoping that the break meant she was mounting another of the comebacks she’s put together here.

“I have come back a lot of times and a couple of times this week already,” she said. “A third time would have been unbelievable. I was hanging in there because you never know. I’m a pretty good fighter.”

Sabatini, who in a previous year may have collapsed when presented with such a challenge, was fighting her own dark thoughts.

“Yeah, actually it came to my mind a little bit,” Sabatini said of the French Open match. “You know what happens with Mary Joe when she is down, she starts playing great tennis. But I have many matches like this.”

It took seven match points, but Sabatini won.

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Another game American woman was eliminated Tuesday when Steffi Graf defeated Amy Frazier, 6-2, 6-3.

The unseeded Frazier was playing in only her second quarterfinal in a Grand Slam tournament. She defeated two seeded players to get to Graf, but the top-seeded German had little trouble eliminating the player whose chief claim to fame is that she carries a purse on to the court.

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First there was Martina Hingis, named after Martina Navaratilova. Now comes a young Czech player, Gabriela Navratilova, named after Gabriela Sabatini.

Navratilova has yet to rise to the level of either of her namesakes. The teen-ager is ranked No. 561.