Wimbledon Roundup : Women’s Semifinals May Be Rematches

At the All England Lawn Tennis Club, they like order.

The top women players are again obliging.

While second-seeded Martina Navratilova was coming back to win her fourth-round match, No. 1 Steffi Graf, No. 3 Pam Shriver and No. 4 Chris Evert each advanced to the semifinals Tuesday with straight set victories.

Graf, 19, kept her Grand Slam hopes alive with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over unseeded Pascale Paradis of France. The West German has won all 19 of her Grand Slam tournament matches this year without losing a set.

Evert, a three-time Wimbledon champion, defeated sixth-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, 6-3, 7-6.

“I thought she came in (to the net) too much,” the 33-year-old Evert said. “She didn’t pick her shots well enough. She came in on everything and gave me lots of chances to pass her.”

Shriver, who has mononucleosis, downed 12th-seeded Zina Garrison, 6-4, 6-4, in another women’s quarterfinal. Garrison had upset Gabriela Sabatini Monday.

If Navratilova beats unseeded Ros Fairbank in a quarterfinal match today, it will set up a rematch of last year’s semifinals when she beat Evert, and Graf defeated Shriver.

On a cold day, during which play was delayed five hours by a steady drizzle, 56 matches were postponed because of the weather, but all of the major singles matches were completed.

Navratilova, seeking her seventh straight singles title and ninth overall, was trailing, 4-2, Monday evening when her match against Larisa Savchenko of the Soviet Union was suspended by rain.

When the match resumed, Navratilova quickly won the first five games and went on to win, 6-4, 6-2.

The 31-year-old American said she was inspired by watching a tape of Mike Tyson’s fast knockout of Michael Spinks in their heavyweight championship fight Monday night.

“He knocked the breath out of me just watching,” she said. “Tyson’s awesome. He never took a step back.”

Neither did Navratilova hesitate Tuesday once the match resumed several hours late because of rain.

During the streak in which she won five straight games, Navratilova lost only 11 points. Four of those were in the 10-point first game of the second set.

“When I broke her and reached 4-4, I was thrilled about that,” Navratilova said.

She broke Savchenko, seeded 13th, for a 4-2 lead in the second set and closed out the match with a love game on serve and a break at 15.

“At 5-2 in the second set, I thought I was out of the woods,” Navratilova said. “I felt good then. Twice when I was serving, she was not even holding the racket with both hands.”

Savchenko, feeling the nerves as Navratilova had hoped, served five double faults after play resumed, including three in her last two service games.

For Fairbank, today’s match will be her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.

“She’s in the quarterfinals, so she must be doing something right,” Navratilova said. “She’s the kind of player who can give you trouble if you’re not playing right, but she doesn’t have the shot-making ability of Savchenko.”

In men’s play, sixth-seeded Boris Becker finally got onto Court 1 late in the afternoon. He proceeded to oust unseeded Paul Annacone, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

With his win over Annacone, Becker joined second-seeded Mats Wilander as the only men left in the tournament who have not lost a set.

“It’s almost good that I played today,” Becker said. “It wasn’t a hard match, so it was the best practice.”

Looking ahead to his quarterfinal match against Pat Cash, Becker said, “The match is nothing to do with tennis. It’s mental.”

Tim Mayotte became the lone American in the men’s quarterfinals with a 6-4, 7-6, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Henri Leconte in the completion of their rain-suspended fourth-round match.

It is the fifth time Mayotte has reached the quarterfinals.