MONICA SELES may have been well below her best for the majority of this year but even with an injured shoulder she remains a closed book to Spain's Conchita Martinez who has never beaten her in nine attempts. Seles will not know her opponent until today - the other semi final, between Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis, was rained off after only one game.

Yesterday's completed semifinal matched the dark and gloomy weather that scudded over Flushing Meadows as the second hurricane of the US Open fortnight catherine wheeled its way along the Eastern Seaboard and hurled great ribs of cloud over New York.

The flags surrounding the Stadium court strained at the leash and so did Martinez, but to no avail. Seles began a little tentatively but Martinez failed to take advantage of the America's initially wayward ground strokes and lost 6-4, 6-3.

The draw opened up like a filleted fish in the first week with Anke Huber, Kimiko Date and Magdalena Maleeva all falling by the wayside in Seles's quarter. There really were no bones to pick out until she met Martinez and she was fossilised.

Both women had to wait while Australia's Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde the Woodies to everybody knocked off Jacco Eltingh and Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands in the men's doubles final. This 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 victory was their seventh Grand Slam title together.

As the Australian pair received their trophy it began to rain heavily, further delaying the first semi final while the court was dried. There looked to be much more rain in the lowering skies but the strong wind was enough to keep it off.

Seles imposed her will from the start breaking the Martinez serve and then just about holding her own. The Spaniard had three break points. Had she taken any one it might have made all the difference.

These days Seles is unsure about her serve which has been weakened by the deep rooted tear she suffered at the beginning of the year and pot her out of the game for three months just after she had won the Australian Open in Melbourne last January.

A whole range of doubts would surely entered her mind if Martinez had broken back; instead Seles grew stronger and stronger as the match progressed.

This has not been a particularly good year for Martinez. She has won only one tournament when she beat Marlina Hingis in the Italian Open final in Rome. The 1994 Wimbledon champion seems to have a semi final block.

Last year Martinez reached all four Grand Slam semifinals losing the lot and made the last four again at Roland Garros this year, going out to Steffi Graf.

The first set went with serve after that initial break, leaving the Spaniard needing to break Seles at 4-5 in order to save it. Martinez took the first point and argued long and hard when Seles's next shot, a forehand down the line, was allowed to stand. Martinez clearly believed it was out which did nothing for hopes of a salvage operation.

Seles duly served out and quickly went for the Spaniard's throat in the second set. Martinez, as if she did not have troubles enough, was now suffering from a blister which needed treatment. It only delayed the inevitable.

So, for the second year running, Seles was through to the final. Last year she reached it on a wave of sentiment, for it was her first Grand Slam tournament since she was stabbed in the back in April 1993. Graf beat her in three sets in a match reckoned to be one of the best in US Open history.

Asked about the possibility of a rematch of last year's three set classic final with Graf, Seles said: "I don't know, it's going to be almost impossible to live up to that match."

She will now face either Graf or 15 year old Hingis for the title.

Graf and Hingis had played the first game of their semi final, with Hingis fighting off a break point to hold serve, when a downpour struck and the match was suspended.

About three and a half hours later, tournament officials finally cancelled play for the day.

That left the Graf Hingis match to be completed today, along with the men's semi finals.

The women's match will be followed by the men's semi finals with second seed Michael Chang playing sixth seeded Andre Agassi, and top seeded defending champion Pete Sampras facing fourth seed Goran Ivanisevic.

The quarter final between Sampras and Alex Corretja on Thursday night was a memorable tennis match.

Sampras, the number one seed and reigning champion, has nothing of Andre Agassi's charismatic crackle and spark on court; he is someone to be admired rather than taken to the heart (or hated, for that matter).

Yet in his literally gut wrenching 7-6, 5-7, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 victory over Corretja, one of a clutch of talented Spaniards, Sampras displayed such resilience and resolve, when his body was screaming for him to stop, that any doubters could do nothing other than admit that this man is a true champion.

He may not win this title, for Goran Ivanisevic played with such unbending discipline and fire to defeat Stefan Edberg, playing his last Grand Slam after 54 consecutive appearances, that Sampras may find, as in the semifinals at Roland Garros against the Russian Andrei Kafelnikov, that he simply does not have enough gas.