Manhattan Beach Tennis : Hakami, 17, Earns a Shot at Navratilova

Ray Hakami, having spent the afternoon answering questions about his daughter, finally posed one of his own.

“What do you think?” he asked.

The topic was his 17-year-old daughter and pupil, Elly, a first-year tennis pro. More specifically, he was asking for an opinion on Elly’s two-handed forehand and two-handed backhand.

Certainly, it is one of the first things that is noticed about Hakami. The two-handed forehand obviously sets her apart from all but a handful of other players. Now, in her first full summer on the pro tour, Hakami has managed to set herself apart again. She’s been able to distinguish herself from the others, the other young American baseliners, who are virtually indistinguishable.

It all started at the California Open two weeks ago when Hakami beat three higher-ranked players--Terry Phelps, Kathy Jordan and Melissa Gurney--to win the championship. The next week, Hakami defeated Gurney again as she reached the quarterfinals at San Diego.

Now, Hakami has become a story here by reaching the quarterfinals in a slightly more important setting, the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Los Angeles. What makes her accomplishment more significant is that this event--traditionally a U.S. Open warm-up tournament--has a Grand Slam field. The draw is sprinkled with names like Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Hana Mandlikova.

And, now, Elly Hakami.

Hakami defeated Anne Minter, 6-4, 2-6, 6-0, Thursday to set up a quarterfinal meeting with Navratilova.

While some rookie pros might start shaking and stammering at the sight of seeing Navratilova’s name next to theirs in the draw, Hakami actually relishes the thought of meeting the world’s No. 1 player.

“I’m just going to go out there and be loose,” she said. “I have nothing to lose. There’s always going to be jitters. But after a few games, I think you can overcome that.”

At San Diego, after one victory, Hakami felt that certain parts of her game--namely, her return--could give Navratilova problems. Thursday Hakami didn’t feel any differently.

“Yeah, I do feel that way,” she said. “I’ve got deep, penetrating ground stokes. When I’m playing well that might give her problems when she’s coming up to the net.”

So, Elly, if you play your best game, could you beat Martina?

Hakami hesitated for a second. “I’m not going to say anything, but, no, it won’t be 6-0, 6-0.”

Confidence has always been one of her biggest assets. Hakami, ranked No. 65, needed to go three sets before beating all three of her higher-ranked opponents at the Manhattan Country Club--Beverly Bowes, Mary Joe Fernandez and Minter. But, in each case, Hakami never doubted herself.

Ray Hakami found it tougher to watch.

“I felt like a flat tire,” he said, looking drained. “Elly performs very well under pressure. She’s been able to do that all through her junior career and now in the pros. . . . Looking at Elly, I knew she was going to pull it out. I saw the signs in her face and the determination in her looks.”

Navratilova and Evert were pushed to tiebreakers in the first sets of their third-round matches. However, both won in straight sets.

West Germany’s Eva Pfaff, ranked No. 38, fought off seven set points in the tiebreaker before Navratilova won the it, 11-9. After the tiebreaker, Navratilova had little trouble and won, 7-6, 6-1.

“I’m still a little rusty from my time off,” said Navratilova, who had missed five weeks because of an ankle injury. “I just need to play more. She has always given me a hard time. It’s usually three sets and she even held a match point against me four or five years ago.”

After Evert defeated Czechoslovakia’s Jana Novotna, 7-6, 6-3, she pronounced herself just “an inch away from really playing well.”

Meanwhile, Graf continued to have no trouble at all. Rather, she had no match at all on Thursday, defeating France’s Pascale Paradis, 6-0, 6-0, in 36 minutes.

Which meant the No. 2-seeded Graf had the chance to try something different.

“Someone in the crowd asked me to play a drop shot,” Graf said. “So I did. It wasn’t even a good drop shot, but she couldn’t even do anything with that.”

Paradis did retrieve the drop shot. But then Graf hit a shot at her. Paradis overplayed it, and the ball came off her racket and hit her.

“I felt so bad for her,” Graf said, looking embarrassed.

Next for Graf is today’s quarterfinal match against Federation Cup teammate Bettina Bunge. Bunge defeated No. 5-seeded Helena Sukova, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, in another third-round match. Although Bunge is ranked 12th in the world, the victory really shouldn’t be considered an upset because she has defeated Sukova seven of the 10 times they’ve played.

Others advancing on Thursday included No. 7 Gabriela Sabatini, a 7-5, 6-1 winner over Isabelle Demongeot, and No. 8 Lori McNeil, who defeated Kathy Horvath, 6-4, 6-1.

Notes

So how exactly did Martina Navratilova hurt her ankle playing basketball? Trying to box out against someone like Ralph Sampson? “It was on an 18-footer, which went in, incidentally,” Navratilova said. Navratilova said it happened during a pickup game and the someone should have been boxing out, rather than facing her. “Her right foot was under my left foot,” Navratilova said. “I was pretty upset, and she never apologized. I was just lying there, and she kept shooting jumpers. It’s the first and last time she’ll play basketball with us. If you ever hear I hit someone without being provoked, you’ll know why.” Navratilova was kidding. Kind of. . . . The attendance during the day session was 3,133, and there were 4,782 at the evening matches for a total of 7915. . . . In the quarterfinals today, Navratilova plays Elly Hakami at 11:30, followed by Steffi Graf vs. Bettina Bunge, and then Hana Mandlikova vs. Gabriela Sabatini. Chris Evert meets Lori McNeil at 7 p.m.