1989 US OPEN (Hard)
S. GRAF 3-6 7-5 6-1
Posted by OrdinaryFoolish (see post 34)
September 10, 1989
Graf Struggles Early, but Captures Open
By ROBIN FINN
"New York Times"
All year long, Steffi Graf had been in a struggle with herself to
prevent 1989 from becoming anticlimactic to 1988, the season she
attained a Golden Grand Slam of tennis by capturing all four Grand
Slam titles and, in something of a command performance for her native
West Germany, an Olympic gold medal. By the time she reached this
United States Open, Graf was tired of hearing herself compared to a
machine, and tired of putting herself through her paces before a crowd
torn between a demand for perfection and the desire to see her betray
some signs of vulnerability.
But Graf, in more fragile form than she has displayed in recent years,
regained her champion's standards after a puzzling start against
Martina Navratilova yesterday and successfully defended her United
States Open title with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory. The tournament brought
Graf her third Grand Slam victory of the year and her seventh Grand
Slam championship in two years.
When Graf finished the match with an ace on her second serve, both
women tossed their racquets into the air: Navratilova, who felt she
gave the match away, in disgust, and Graf, with her performance
anxieties behind her for the moment, in triumph.
In her usual hurry, Graf barely had time to go through the
post-victory formalities before she was due on a flight back to
Bruehl, West Germany. Once she got home, Graf said, she would take the
leisure to savor this comeback victory against the opponent she has
trouble speaking to but loves to defeat.
"I was trying to go for it and didn't let up, and that was the most
important thing," said Graf, who later denied Navratilova's suggestion
that she takes little pleasure from the game and instead has grown
accustomed to winning in a mechanical manner. "I think that someone
who doesn't enjoy the
sport wouldn't be on the court anymore," Graf
said. "I like it very much, but if it doesn't show, I don't care."
Navratilova predicted five years ago that her retention of the No. 1
spot in women's tennis would become dependent on Graf's maturation
rate. Yesterday's triumph provided Graf with her fourth victory in her
last six meetings with Navratilova in Grand Slam finals, the events
tennis professionals use as the measure of championship mettle.
"I knew it was going to be hard to come back," Graf said of her
inauspicious start. "Yesterday, I thought I was going to lose it,"
she said of the semifinal match against Gabriela Sabatini that sent
her from the Stadium court convulsed by tears and cramps, "but not
today. Today I just kept hanging in. I felt very comfortable that I
would win the second set: I told myself, 'Just give everything.' "
For Navratilova, making her 17th appearance at the Open, the match
marked the end of another disappointing year in which she was frozen
out of the Grand Slam winner's circle, largely due to Graf's presence
there, for only the second time this decade.
"I'll be back again next year," said Navratilova, who claimed the
first set and was up 4-3 in the second when Graf reignited her
blistering cross-court forehand and began to make her move. "By the
third set she was a runaway train," the 32-year-old veteran with 17
Grand Slam championships said of the 20-year-old Graf. "It's just hard
to stop her once she gets going."
In the first set, Navratilova held serve and, playing a breezily
perfect level of tennis, nonchalantly broke Graf in the eighth game to
give herself the only edge she needed. Navratilova was blowing kisses
at the sky as she dug improbable volleys out of her feet and nudged
them over the net, and her fussily placed serves prevented Graf from
doing any real damage. But Navratilova's easy manner eventually began
to work against her once Graf shook off her initial inertia and began
to fight back.
"If anything, this was a case of not tightening the screws enough,"
Navratilova said. "I know how to beat her, I just haven't been able to
do it again."
This was the third Grand Slam final where Graf, who five years ago
received a letter of encouragement from Navratilova after sustaining
an injury, spoiled Navratilova's quest to secure her first Grand Slam
title since the 1987 Open. In that match, an 18-year-old Graf was her
victim, but since then Navratilova has been the perpetual challenger.
From the start of the match, Navratilova, determined to stay relaxed,
had behaved like a hostess on the Stadium court. She arrived with a
bundle of flowers, beaming a debutante's smile, and carefully removed
her watch and rearranged her jewelry before taking to the court for
the warmup session. Through the first set, Navratilova seemed to be
playing for joy, not under pressure, and it helped her storm ahead to
a 6-3 snubbing of the world's best player.
Graf was unsmiling, all business, and appeared to be playing under
some duress, uneasy over the sweltering conditions on court and the
memory of the cramps she suffered in the 120-degree courtside heat
during her victory over Sabatini. That three-set match, twice as long
as her previous matches and the first of the tournament that had been
more than a glorified practice session for Graf, had drained her. Graf
typically moves across the court like a toe dancer, but yesterday, at
least for the first set, she rocked back on her heels
uncharacteristically and allowed Navratilova to lurk like a predator
at the net.
Navratilova, her passion for the game as evident as Graf's is veiled,
had the crowd in her corner and didn't mind playing the underdog's
role, especially when the momentum belonged to her. But Navratilova's
pleasant expression became vexed when Graf began to pour on the
passing shots midway through the second set, undermining her own
efforts at net.
Graf, after losing her serve in the third game of the second set,
broke back to 4-4 in the eighth game by pummeling her return into
Navratilova's feet. After fending off a break point in the ninth game,
Graf smiled her first smile of the match as she toweled the sweat and
steam from her right arm and prepared to deliver a service winner.
In the set's 12th game, Graf sent a backhand down the line, passed
Navratilova as she charged the net, and then forced Navratilova to
push a volley long, earning herself a triple break point as well as
three set points. At 15-40, when Navratilova netted her backhand
approach shot and lost the game and set, she uttered a shrill cry of
frustration that Graf interpreted as surrender.
In the end, Navratilova said, the player who has been the most recent
rather than most prolific champion had the final say because she
dictated the play on the crucial points. "I've been there many times,
but I haven't been there for a while," she said.
"I go more from memory than instinct," said Navratilova, who then
described Graf's grasp of victory as "second nature."
