Women’s Final Four Features Different Cast of Characters

NEW YORK — For only the second time in the Open era, only one of the top four seeded players is in the U.S. Open women’s singles semifinals, and for that, we can thank Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Mary Joe Fernandez.

The semifinals look like a missing-persons report.

Monica Seles is there all right, but she is playing Fernandez, not Gabriela Sabatini today, a circumstance that came about when Fernandez defeated the fourth-seeded player in the quarterfinals.

In the other semifinal, Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere and Sanchez Vicario made it, but second-seeded Steffi Graf did not. This happened when Sanchez Vicario moved her out of the tournament in straight sets, Graf’s first loss in a quarterfinal round in nearly a year.

All four semifinalists play from the baseline and seldom stray very far away.

Seles is 12-1 against Fernandez and also leads in sets won, 25-4. Maybe the best thing Fernandez has going for her is that Seles isn’t feeling well. She is battling a virus and said she felt dizzy Tuesday in her quarterfinal victory against Patricia Hy.

But Seles practiced Wednesday and Thursday and said she no longer had a sore throat.

“I am lucky that I got two days off,” Seles said.

Sanchez Vicario is 1-2 against Maleeva-Fragniere and is making her seventh appearance in a Grand Slam semifinal. Maleeva-Fragniere has never been in a Grand Slam semifinal, but she made this one after defeating her younger sister, Magdalena, who beat third-seeded Martina Navratilova in the second round.