Ladies’ Man : When He Isn’t Playing Tennis, Emilio Sanchez Makes All the Right Moves

The intermittent praise that rains on Emilio Sanchez in his native Spain is mainly due to the plain fact that there hasn’t been just a whole lot to cheer about on the tennis front lately.

The recent fortunes of Spanish tennis could be described in two words--Manuel Orantes. The 1975 U.S. Open champion had the courage of a bullfighter, the fluid moves of a Flamenco dancer and the cool of a cup of gazpacho.

Now, 13 years after Orantes’ greatest triumph, there comes a countryman, 23-year-old Emilio Sanchez, who has some pretty good moves himself.

Here is how Sanchez spent his Sunday afternoon:

Not 45 minutes before he would play Boris Becker in the final of the $702,500 Newsweek Champions Cup, he had urgent business first.

He crashed a press conference so he could meet actress Heather Locklear.

They stood side-by-side and posed for a picture. Suddenly, Sanchez reached out and put his arm around Locklear, pulling her toward him. Then Sanchez kissed her on the cheek.

A few hours later, after a playing a little tennis, Sanchez stepped in front of actress Linda Evans and, in full view of 10,500 fans, several cable television cameras and a couple of dozen photographers, he kissed her, too.

Sanchez, the son of an engineer from Barcelona, thought Evans was kind of neat.

“I think she is a very nice girl,” Sanchez said. “She is very famous in Spain. So if they took pictures, I’ll be famous, too.”

He’s going to have to settle for temporarily wealthy. Sanchez, who kissed Locklear and kissed Evans, got smacked by Becker.

Sanchez won $68,350 Sunday, even though he lost to Becker in four sets. His biggest one-week paycheck for singles boosted Sanchez over the $1-million mark in a career that for some reason seems to remain sort of anonymous.

At one press conference earlier this week, somebody asked Sanchez if the heat in the desert was the same as it is back home on the pampas in Argentina.

Argentina?

Then there were the autograph hunters who asked Sanchez for his signature, then weren’t quite sure whose name they got.

“Amelia! Amelia!” they shouted.

It’s easy to understand the problem. For a long while, Sanchez has been known more for the women he has played tennis with than the men he has beaten.

Sanchez is a specialist, or at least he has been one. He’s best on clay or when he’s playing doubles. Until Sunday, Sanchez had never advanced beyond the quarterfinals on a hard-court surface.

Playing mixed doubles, Sanchez teamed with Pam Shriver to win the French Open and with Martina Navratilova to win the U.S. Open. When Shriver found herself without a partner in Paris, she wasn’t sure what to do. Then she had a thought.

“Why not ask Emilio?” Shriver said. “He’s pretty cute.”

He’s ranked 18th in the world and that’s pretty high for somebody who can’t win once he goes indoors, according to Becker.

On clay, he’s “one of the best,” Becker said.

On hard courts, he “will win a few matches,” Becker said.

This year, Sanchez lost both his Davis Cup singles matches on carpet and lost in the second round at Rotterdam and Milan, both played on carpet.

The Newsweek Champions Cup was his first outdoor tournament, and Sanchez seemed to surprise people. He defeated Diego Perez and Pete Sampras, then upset both Miloslav Mecir and Pat Cash before Becker beat him, 7-5, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

“I know him very well,” Becker said. “He had no confidence at all when the tournament started. Then he beats Mecir, he beats Cash, and in my mind I say, ‘He can play. He’s dangerous.’ ”

Sanchez’s trouble was that he didn’t know it. Sanchez admitted he never thought he could beat Becker.

“If somebody had told me that, I would have said, ‘Wake up!’ ”

Becker said Sanchez is your standard clay-court player. It’s just the other facets of his game that aren’t so standard.

“(Clay-court players) can run forever,” Becker said. “They don’t know what it means to be tired.”

Right now, Sanchez is trying very hard to know what it means to be famous. Play tennis, kiss actresses and get your picture taken.