Los Angeles Tennis : Rehe Advances in Big Giveaway Game

If the late Robert Ripley had ever bothered to leave room for tall tennis tales in his “Believe It Or Not,” the names Stephanie Rehe and Kate Gompert would certainly deserve a mention.

They did the incredible--and then some--in their second-round match Tuesday in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles at the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach. Rehe and Gompert, ranked 13th and 42nd, respectively, among the world’s women tennis players, played an entire set without either holding serve.

None of the experts around the tournament could remember ever hearing of that. Certainly not on the pro level. The serve is the primary weapon in tennis, but with Rehe and Gompert Tuesday, it was the primary problem.

“Six straight service breaks, just incredible,” Gompert said later. “It was ridiculous. That should never happen.”

But it did, and so did much, much more in what developed into one of the more bizarre and dramatic matches of this or any other tennis season.

Rehe ended up winning that all-break first set in the only way it could be decided, a tiebreaker. The score of the tiebreaker was 9-7, and the set was decided, fittingly, when Gompert double-faulted the last point.

Rehe also wound up winning the match, 7-6, 3-6, 7-6. But even that wild-sounding score doesn’t do justice to all that happened.

For example:

--In the 35 games played, the server won only 11 times.

--In the first two sets, Rehe served 11 times and won her serve once.

--The pair played 26 tiebreaker points, and the server won only five of those.

--The match took 3 hours 24 minutes, and nobody won serve until 1:39 into the match. The first set took two minutes shy of an hour and a half.

--Gompert started the ninth game of the first set by trying a drop shot that bounced twice before it hit the net.

--After Gompert had overhit the base line in the fourth game of the first set, neither failed to return service until early in the second set. They were zeroed in on their returns, but zeroes on their serves.

--Gompert lost the first-set tiebreaker after taking a 5-2 lead on Rehe’s double fault.

And that was just the first set.

Gompert ended up losing this matchup of steady baseline players with two-handed backhands after running through Rehe handily in the second set and then leading in the third set, 5-0. After 3-3 in the second set, Gompert had won eight games in a row to get to 5-0 in the third. And still she lost. Yes, Cathy Lee Crosby, that’s incredible.

“That should just never happen. It just can’t happen,” Gompert said afterward. “But it does. And it did.” Gompert, 23, a member of Stanford University’s 1984 NCAA championship team, had lost to the fast-rising Rehe in last week’s San Diego tournament but had beaten her in this tournament last year.

And this time, she had the tournament’s ninth-seeded player one shovelful away from being buried. But Rehe, showing unusual poise for a player still three months away from her 17th birthday, just kept playing, right on through two match points for Gompert.

“I really don’t know how I pulled it out,” Rehe said later. “I just started going for it, going for all the shots.”

On Gompert’s second match point, with Rehe serving at 4-5, they hit the ball back and forth 33 times before Rehe won the rally. That appeared to be the final straw for Gompert, who looked toward the sky and said: “I’m trying so hard!” There was no response. Apparently Somebody up there had watched the first set.

Rehe cashed in on her first match point, serving at 6-3 of the tiebreaker and outlasting Gompert in yet another long battle of backhands.

“I was both shocked and relieved when it was over,” Rehe said. “I was just relieved that I had pulled it out, even though I don’t really know how I did it.”

So, after nearly 3 1/2 hours of tennis, thousands of baseline strokes, an estimated total of two dozen double faults and even a rush or two to the net every 45 minutes or so, Rehe had emerged victorious.

And had earned the right to advance to the round of 16 tonight and play--you guessed it--Martina Navratilova.

The top two seeded players, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd, started toward their expected duel in the final with relatively easy wins in the evening’s featured matches.

Lloyd beat Elise Burgin, ranked 43rd in the world, 6-4, 6-2, and Navratilova beat Debbie Spence of Cerritos, 6-0. 6-1. The match took 43 minutes. Spence is ranked 63rd.

Notes Stephanie Rehe was the only seeded player who had a real close call Tuesday. The rest followed the form sheet. . . . Patty Fendick of Stanford, this year’s NCAA champion and a newcomer on the pro tour, has continued on from her impressive Wimbledon showing. She moved into the round of 16 Tuesday by breezing past Tina Mochizuki, 6-2, 6-3. . . . Former USC star Beth Herr dropped a three-set match to Rosalyn Fairbank, trying a drop shot on match point that hit the tape. . . . Kathy Jordan, seeded 12th, had a decent battle against Regina Marsikova, going down a service break in the second set before rallying to win, 7-5, 7-6.