FULL VERSION Sabatini vs Graf 1990 US Open

She Can't Believe It

''It's very hard for me to talk right now,'' said Sabatini, the first woman from Argentina to win a Grand Slam title. ''I just can't believe that I won this tournament. There are no words to explain this emotion. I've been training a lot to win it; I just can't believe this came true.''

While the victory brought Sabatini the biggest payday of her six-year professional career - $350,000, or $50,000 for each of seven victories at the Open - it validated one of the most important decisions of her life, to change coaches the day after she lost to Jana Novotna in the fourth round at the French Open in June. It was a demoralizing moment, especially in that she had been a semifinalist at the French in three of the previous four years.

Her game under Angel Giminez had seemed to stagnate, so the decision was made to hire Carlos Kirmayr, a former touring professional from Brazil with a mellow personality: he's a part-time drummer in a rock band.

It was Kirmayr and an American sports psychologist Sabatini had been working with, Jim Loehr, who began teaching her the advantages of approaching the net without fear. Never before the Open had the tactic worked so well, as she registered straight-set victories over Kathy Jordan, Isabelle Demonogeot of France, Sabine Appelmans of Belgium, 11th-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia and Leila Meskhi of the Soviet Union. In the semifinals, she beat eighth-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez in three sets.

''I was working with my coach very much to come to the net,'' said Sabatini, seeded fifth here at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens. ''I want to say 'Thank you' to my coach. We've been working together only two months now, and he already gave me a lot of confidence.''

''Nobody was expecting me to win this tournament,'' she said, glowing. ''I think that really helped me because they were talking about Steffi and Martina and Monica Seles, and I didn't feel any pressure. I was just played my game, started playing good tennis and worried about what I had to do.''