Tennis: Wimbledon '93 / Jana only left with a broken heart: Centenary women's championship ends in tears as courageous Czech challenger succumbs to tension with victory in sight

IT SHOULD have been a celebration yesterday, but instead Wimbledon's Centre Court was exposed to the disturbing vision of Jana Novotna throwing away the Wimbledon women's singles title. Like a marathon runner hitting the wall yards from the finishing line she slipped, stumbled and fell just short of becoming the centenary champion.

Steffi Graf did not claim the pounds 240,000 first prize; it was handed to her on the silver platter that is the women's Rosewater Dish trophy by her Czech opponent. Within a point of going 5-1 up in the final set, Novotna crumbled in spectacular fashion amid a wreckage of double faults and errors to lose 7-6, 1-6, 6-4 in 2hr 14min.

Novotna, a tennis player of high talent, has been left short of one of the game's greatest prizes by her temperament. Like her coach, Hana Mandlikova, before her, she has let slip winning positions because of mental weakness but rarely have her raw nerves been exposed like this. Here she collapsed like a house without foundations in a gale.

The end brought violently contrasting reactions from victor and vanquished. Graf, who had won her fifth Wimbledon and 13th Grand Slam title, climbed Pat Cash-like to throw her arms round her parents in the players' box. Novotna also had an embrace, one of pity from the Duchess of Kent, who, like the rest of the Centre Court, was moved by the flood of tears.

'For a few moments I was very happy,' Graf said, 'then I saw Jana and I knew what she was going through. I felt bad for her. If you are 4-1 up and serving you are pretty well in a position where you have to win. I was unhappy because she'd played so well and she didn't make it. I would be very, very disappointed with myself if I lost a match like that. Yes. I would probably think I'd choked.'

The advantage in the final set lurched from one side of the net to the other without warning. With splendid disregard for safety Novotna had charged relentlessly at the net, imposing such a strain on Graf that she was certain the reigning champion would fail to make it a hat-trick of victories. Wimbledon, it seemed, was about to crown a worthy successor to Martina Navratilova in the great grass-court tradition of serve and volley.

'I thought I was out of it,' Graf conceded. 'She had two breaks, she was going to serve for it and the way she played the games before I thought I'd lost it. I didn't give up but I didn't have a positive feeling.' Novotna had plenty until she double faulted at 4-1 and

40-30. Then the confidence did not drain away, it came out like a waterfall.

The end was in stark contrast with what had gone before. The distracting impact of reaching a first Wimbledon final can be under-estimated. Chris Evert says she was so excited at playing in the climax of the 1973 tournament that she was barely aware of what was happening until Billie Jean King had won the first set 6-0. Even Steffi Graf suffered a mild form of stage fright in her first appearance in the final, losing in straight sets to Martina Navratilova.

'It wasn't really nerve racking,' Graf recalled, 'but I was so happy that I was there I didn't think much about winning. I was just so excited.'

Novotna had played in a Grand Slam singles final before, the Australian two years ago, and she is an accomplished winner of doubles titles, but this was her first one on her own at Wimbledon. Nevertheless the eighth seed, who looks like an 800-metre runner under starter's orders when she is about to receive - her body crouched and her feet running on the spot - got off to a flier.

In the semi-finals, against Navratilova, the Czech had been a dynamic force, racing round the court and thumping her volleys past the bemused former champion. The first two games yesterday were reminiscent, Novotna breaking Graf to 30 after gaining break point with an exquisite lob and then forcing her opponent into overhitting a forehand. Novotna held her own serve and then threatened Graf again, getting a break point before the champion settled her own nerves by claiming her first game.

She squandered this advantage to lose a tie-break 8-6 after missing a set point but instead of being dragged down by this disappointment she was recuperated. Novotna broke Graf in the second and fourth games of the second set, overwhelming the German with her swoops and volleys at the net. In 23 minutes she had gained parity, winning the set 6-1. The first had lasted 68 minutes.

Novotna carried this momentum into the final set, breaking Graf twice and at 40-30 was within a point of going 5-1 ahead. Instead she double-faulted and then compounded her mistake by hitting a sequence of volleys into the net. Her nerves were shredded and she lost that game and the next four.

'I don't think anyone gives you a match,' said Graf, who has now won both Grand Slam titles since her great rival Monica Seles was laid low by a madman's knife. 'She gave me a few points and she missed some easy forehands but I still had to put the ball in play.'

At the end that was all that was required to reinforce the stranglehold she and Seles have taken on the top of the women's game. Graf said that she was so unprepared for victory that she did not even have a dress for tonight's Wimbledon Ball.

Twenty-five of the last 26 Grand Slam finals have featured either herself or Seles, a sequence that goes back to the 1987 French Open. Not since the 1990 US Open (Sabatini) has someone other than the top duo won one of the major prizes.

The women's game needed a change and it almost got one yesterday. Almost, but not quite. More tennis, page 27

(Photograph omitted)