Tennis: Graf the rainy day woman

THE Grand Slam, chronological and actual, disappeared from Monica Seles's horizon last night. Under menacing clouds and in light, at 7.29pm, dubiously fit for play, Steffi Graf beat her 6-2, 6-1 in the Wimbledon women's singles final, ending her run of 41 victories in major tournaments.

It was a win that was as conclusive as it was surprising, and was delayed not by Seles's resistance but by three breaks for rain. A victory for Graf on her favourite surface was always possible, yet the margin over a woman who has dominated women's tennis for 18 months was scarcely credible. Graf has rarely served better, and with Seles in a strangely subdued mood the result was barely ever in question.

Seles had won five of the last six grand slam tournaments and only one jewel was missing from her collection - Wimbledon. After this defeat it remains a holy grail made more precious by the lost prize of the Grand Slam. If she had won yesterday whe would have been only the sixth person to hold all four majors at the same time. The even rarer feat of ownership of the great prizes in the same calendar year would have required a win at the US Open in September.

Those ambitions were made irrelevant yesterday as Graf completed her win over her greatest rival in a final 12-minute spell that was the match's fourth passage of play. The rout lasted just 58 minutes - the shortest final since Martina Navratilova overwhelmed Andrea Jaeger in 1983 - but such were the stoppages for rain that it was stretched over five and a half hours. It was a wonder the quality of play was sustained in such trying circumstances.

'She never let me into the match,' Seles said afterwards. 'I couldn't find my rhythm on serve or ground strokes. And I made too many unforced errors. I also had problems with her serve, not just the first one, but the second too.

'I never thought I'd win the Grand Slam even after the French Open, even when I got to the final here. There was always the US Open and some years I don't play well there. You need a lot of luck to win it.'

The meeting between the two great powers in the game was the ninth in a series that Graf, the reigning champion, had led 5-3. Statistics can be misleading, however, and in recent times Seles's supremacy has been such that she went into the match strongly favoured. Graf's hopes lay with the surface which aided her game and hindered the baseline preference of the world No 1. Seles does not bow to anyone but she acknowledges Graf's superiority in her serve and her athleticism.

On clay these advantages are neutralised by the slower surface, a fact reinforced by Seles's 6-2, 3- 6, 10-8 victory in the final of the French Open four weeks ago. On grass, however, Graf's strengths are at their most potent. She came out yesterday like a greyhound from the traps, winning the first game to love and threatening Seles's serve with a break point at 30-40 in the second. The German looked the epitome of confidence, while Seles, resolutely silent after recent complaints about her on- court din - 'I didn't win because of grunting and I didn't lose today because of it' - looked edgy and tentative.

The Yugoslav had good reason, for in her next serve she was broken. Graf was forcing Seles on to the defensive with her powerful forehands, and the crack came after two deuces when the latter hit a forehand long.

Seles is never more dangerous than when wounded, however, and she attacked in the next game in an attempt to regain the lost initiative. Graf went 40-0 up but Seles, thundering ground strokes from both wings, pinned her opponent back, forcing four deuces before Graf prevailed.

The most illuminating point had been at 30-love when Seles crashed a forehand into Graf's forehand corner that would have been a winner against almost any other player in the world. Graf, running and stretching, got her racket to it and found a response of such power that Seles was completely off balance. Graf punched the air with joy. It had been a triumph of no little significance.

The effect of that game, probably the match's pivotal moment, was immediately apparent when Seles lost her next serve to 30 and the set. The grunt was absent but so was the power that sets her apart from her peers. Indeed, when Graf won the first game of the next set to love it seemed that the match might finish quickly, but after 36 minutes the rain intervened. Seles, 6-2, 1-0 down, was definitely the happier to leave the court.

The players returned after a break of 46 minutes, playing only a further three minutes and five points. An hour and three-quarters later they reappeared, this time for a spell of greater tennis relevance.

Just 23 points were possible, but it was Graf who plundered the majority of them. Game went with serve until the fourth game when Seles surrendered two double faults and the game to trail 3-1. To emphasise her grip on the game, Graf served to love in the next game and was poised for victory when the heaviest downpour of the day intervened.

The outcome was merely postponed. Seles fought desperately, clinging on for five deuces before she was broken again and Graf was able to serve for the match to 15 with virtually no pressure upon her. The coup de grace was an ace. 'It was the best match I've played for a long, long time,' Graf said. 'I felt great walking out there. It had a lot to do with believing in myself. I don't think she had any game plan. She was just trying to hit the ball hard which I stood up to.

'There was so much talk of grunting. Maybe that got to her, bothered her a bit. She didn't serve as well as she usually does and I could jump on it. I wanted to go for my shots and to play my sliced backhand as often as I could.'

Graf, who in 1988 became the last player to complete a Grand Slam, was left happy with her victory and aware of an irony she enjoyed even if Seles did not. Her own greatest run of victories in grand slam tournaments, ended at the French Open in 1989, is also 41.

(Photograph omitted)