Los Angeles Tennis : Gurney Is Making Her Summer Count

News Item: Melissa Gurney, 17, of Palos Verdes, advanced to the round of 16 Wednesday in the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Los Angeles tennis tournament at Manhattan Country Club. Melissa, about that summer job of yours. Perhaps you took it a little too seriously when your teachers suggested that you go out and make a little pocket change.

They were thinking along the lines of baby-sitting, or cutting the grass. They weren’t talking about earning yourself into a new tax bracket. Does anyone know of any 17-year-old who made $39,431 washing cars around the neighborhood?

Look at it this way: Melissa Gurney, professional tennis player, has a mere three months to travel around the world, make her money, move up in the rankings, then skedaddle home to put up Rob Lowe posters and pick out school clothes.

“It is getting to be too much,” Carolyn Gurney, said after her daughter’s 6-4, 6-4 win over Anne Minter Wednesday. She was explaining how Gurney plays the pro circuit in the summer and goes back to “normal” life when school starts.

“It’s a lot of tournaments in not much time,” she said. “It’s a decision we made three months ago. We batted it around. But it’s going to be all right.”

Gurney has made the most of her summer vacation, besides getting a tan, by going to work. She will return to the Chadwick School for her senior year having won at least two tournaments, Berkeley and San Diego, in order. And she is now ranked 34th in the world.

Gurney has a strong base-line game and moves well, but, like so many young American players, has yet to develop a convincing net game. In her match against Minter, she was cemented to the base line.

“I still don’t have enough confidence to come in a lot,” Gurney said.

Lucky for her, Minter didn’t roam far from the base line, either. The match quickly turned into a ground stroke slugfest, with each player waiting for the other to make mistakes. There were plenty of those.

“I’m happy that I’m playing well enough to win,” Gurney said. “But I made some unforced errors. There is no excuse for unforced errors.”

Gurney erred first when Minter broke her in the fifth game of the first set. Gurney double-faulted to lose the game, after having struggled with her first serve.

Gurney came back with two service breaks, in the 8th and 10th games, to take the first set.

The pattern repeated itself in the second set, or threatened to. Gurney broke Minter in the second game, then was broken herself in the fifth. She still led, 3-2, with Minter serving.

The game went to deuce seven times, and it was advantage Gurney when Minter plopped a drop shot into the net. Gurney got the break on the next point and held her serve to take a 5-2 lead.

But Minter, 23, an Australian ranked No. 88, did not give up. She held her serve at 5-3 and broke Gurney at 5-4.

“At 5-2 through 5-4, she started playing better,” Gurney said. “I think I probably thought that I had it too early.”

She did but didn’t know it yet. All Minter had to do to send the match into chaos was to hold serve. She couldn’t. Gurney went up 40-30 by forcing Minter into shooting a backhand into the net. Then, on match point, Minter double faulted.

In the evening round of 16 match, Martina Navratilova had no problem with Stephanie Rehe, winning 6-1, 6-2, on a night when Rehe’s serve abandoned her.

Rehe was dismal from the service line. She got in only 40% of her first serves in the first set, while double-faulting 11 times.

“I’m sick of the word double-fault,” Rehe said afterward. Despite the thrashing by the world’s No. 1 player in front of many of her friends, Rehe was good natured about the loss. In fact, she could barely keep a straight face.

Rehe, from Highland, which is near Riverside, was seeded No. 9. She did manage to ace Navratilova in the second set, on her second serve, of all things.

Asked about the ace, Rehe said: “I don’t know where that came from. That was hit with my eyes closed.”

Navratilova seemed to share Rehe’s pain, having been there at times.

“I’m really sorry that she’s having trouble with her serve,” Navratilova said. “I’m sure she’ll get it together. It’s not even a weakness, now, it’s a handicap at this point.

“She kept trying, you have to give her credit. She didn’t give up. I’ve been there. I’ve had four double-faults in a game.”

In the day’s two upsets, 11th-seeded Carling Bassett lost to Bettina Bunge, 6-1, 7-5, and 12th-seeded Kathy Jordan lost to Alycia Moulton, 6-4, 6-3.

Notes Lori McNeil advanced with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Sue Mascarin. McNeil is on the same side of the draw as her best friend, Zina Garrison. The likelihood of the two Houston players meeting for the first time as professionals is slim, however. They would have to beat, among others, Martina Navratilova, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch and Helena Sukova. . . . In Wednesday’s matches, Manuela Maleeva beat Rosalyn Fairbank, 6-3, 6-4; Lisa Bonder beat Hu Na, 6-3, 6-1, and Natalie Tauziat of France beat Peanut Louie-Harper, 6-2, 2-6, 6-0.