La Quinta Tennis : Higueras Isn’t Done Just Yet

Leading, 5-3, in the second set and on the verge of knocking Matt Anger out of the Pilot Pen tennis tournament, Jose Higueras hit a shot down the line that, if good, would put him a point away from victory.

Instead, a linesman ruled that the ball had landed in the doubles alley. Higueras, snapping his head around, glared at the official.

It was as if winning the match was so important to him. But it couldn’t be, not the new Jose Higueras, the former top-10 player who is now a contented family man with a Doris Day attitude about competition. You know, “Que Sera Sera.”

“Once you get on that court, you sort of forget that you are retired,” Higueras said. “I’ve been competing for 15 or 16 years, and don’t know if I could ever get the feeling out of me.”

But he is, indeed, semi-retired, although it didn’t appear that way in Tuesday’s 7-5, 7-5 win over Anger at the La Quinta Hotel Tennis Club. This is his first tournament since playing in Hong Kong last November and, he said, most likely his last this year.

Tuesday’s match may have been his last, too, barring a major upset today. He will play third-seeded Boris Becker in the third round Thursday.

But win or lose, Higueras, the No. 7 player in the world as recently as 1983 with career winnings of nearly $1.5 million, figures he has already come out on top.

Three days shy of 33, he is wealthy, has a name that still carries prominence, lives about 30 minutes from here, is married to the daughter of Palm Springs Mayor Frank Bogert and has two young children.

Tennis? Who needs it?

“It’s a great feeling, that’s all I can say,” he begins when asked of his new life. “I like winning and I still like the competition. But obviously, it’s not as important to me as before.

“It’s all much easier now. I really enjoyed playing today. To me, it was just a tennis match. I didn’t have to worry about the points.”

He doesn’t have to worry about the pain and the nagging injuries so much, either. He once was slowed by hepatitis, the effects of which lingered for nearly two years, as well as bad knees, elbow and back. At one point, he couldn’t comb his hair or grip a knob to open a door.

Tuesday, he had Anger down, 5-3, in the first set before losing his grip on that, too. Higueras, having double-faulted away the 10th game to make it 5-5, won the next one to take the lead. He then went up, love-40, and put the set away with a passing shot down the line.

The second set was almost identical as Anger, a 22-year-old, two-time All-American from USC, rallied from another 5-3 deficit and two match points at 4-5. But Higueras, ranked No. 212 in the world, went ahead, 6-5, with an ace to close out the game, and then won the match.

“Right now, with this close a match, I’m pretty much frustrated with how I played,” said Anger, the 23rd-ranked player in the world. “He played pretty good. I certainly didn’t deserve to win.”

But he will have other chances. Higueras, by his own choice, will not.

“I’m very happy to be playing here,” he said. “But don’t ask me to go somewhere else and play again.”

Notes

Wimbledon champion Boris Becker, making his first professional appearance in Southern California, teamed with Slobodan Zivojinovich to beat Shahar Perkiss and Wolfgang Popp in doubles, 6-4, 7-6. Becker will play Mike Leach in singles today. . . . Top-seeded Mats Wilander and No. 2 Jimmy Connors will also play for the first time today, facing Andre Agassi and Marko Ostoja, respectively. . . . Defending champion Larry Stefanki defeated John Lloyd, 6-1, 6-2, to set up a rematch of last year’s championship match with David Pate Thursday. . . . Temperatures for the first two days of the tournament have been in the mid-90s, but most players discount that as a factor in their games. Yannick Noah, however, admitted that he was bothered a bit Tuesday while beating Tim Wilkison, 6-4, 6-4.