Swat and Swagger : Cal Lutheran’s Groff Exhibits a Presence to Match His Intimidating Tennis Game

Chris Groff stared at the ball, his despise for it oozing as he swept back his tennis racket and hammered the Wilson No. 6 into a blur and straight into the net for a double fault--his second of the match.

“Stupid,” he screamed at himself. “Is this really that difficult?”

As it turned out, it was not. Groff beat Craig Brown, Loyola Marymount’s No. 1 singles player, in straight sets Wednesday, improving his personal record to 14-1 and leading Cal Lutheran to its 12th win in 12 dual matches this season. Not only is Groff the fourth-ranked player in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics, CLU is the ninth-ranked team. And, according to some, both rankings are conservative.

“We have a real chance of winning the national tournament,” CLU Coach John Siemens said. “It’s legitimate. It’s not just a fantasy.”

The source of Siemens’ confidence, the numbers, are not make-believe. The Kingsmen have won 70 singles matches thus far and lost 10. Besides Groff, there is Mike Gennette (11-2), Paavo Salmi (9-0), Truls Midtbo (4-0) and Alec Arho (9-3).

It is Groff, though, who is at once the most dominating and peculiar presence on the Kingsmen courts. He is unusually tall--6-feet, 5-inches--and because of his size, he is slightly slow afoot for a tennis player. But he uses his stature to his advantage, in part by nature and in part by design.

Groff’s tallness mixed with an on-court demeanor that is an eerie combination of Bjorn Borg and Ilie Nastase makes for an intimidating figure. “When he’s on the court,” said Siemens, who has a master’s degree in psychology, “it’s like World War III. Before a match, while warming up, he won’t look at his opponent. He doesn’t even acknowledge the opponent as a human being.”

Beyond being just big and intimidating, Groff has something of a wild-eyed, bothered look to him. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t drive next to him on the freeway for an extended period of time. He has a split-level hair-do, with the hair along the lower regions of his scalp sheered to the same length as the beard on his face. The hair at the top of his head is a little longer, producing a bristly effect. In short, his wrap-around haircut itself takes on the appearance of a tennis ball. And it spooks his opponents.

“He’s very aware of the mental aspects of the game,” Siemens said.

Even more unsettling for opponents are Groff’s physical gifts. Because of his strength and an enormous wingspan--Siemens calls Groff’s arms “mutantly long”--he has learned to depend on the serve and volley. During matches, the coach hovers around Groff’s end of the court, exhorting him to be more aggressive.

“He has a huge serve,” Siemens said. “When he serves and sits back, that drives me crazy. I want him at the net.” Hitting passing shots by Groff at the net, Siemens says, is like passing an “orangutan.”

A description with which Brown, moments after losing to Groff, agreed: “He’s got a solid overall game, but his serving and volleying is what got me.”

Groff’s road to Cal Lutheran took many turns to many places, and he is hopeful that the road continues winding after he graduates in June. He played tennis and basketball during high school in San Diego and was leaning toward playing college basketball, but after winning his first 15 matches as a senior in 1982, Groff decided his future was with a racket.

He attended Mesa College in San Diego for two years, finishing seventh in the state tournament at the end of his sophomore season. Groff’s tennis career seemed to be hitting full throttle when he accepted a scholarship to play at Texas Tech in Lubbock in 1986.

Nevertheless, when the Californian rolled into the West Texas town, it was hardly reminiscent of Captain Cook sailing into the Hawaiian Islands.

“I hated it,” Groff said. “It was hicky and the people were weird and different.

“The first nightclub I ever went to, there were two guys brawling on the dance floor because the one guy had looked at the other’s girlfriend. And there would be times when I’d go out with friends for a beer and some cowboy would walk up to me and say, ‘Hey, save that haircut for the West Coast.’ ”

No, sir, they didn’t like the tennis-ball look in West Texas. Groff lasted just one semester before high-tailing it back to California.

His tennis options were limited. He could sign with a Division I school and play for one year, or he could find an NAIA school and play for two. He wrote a letter to Siemens and the Cal Lutheran coach responded quickly. “I’d heard that he was a tournament player so I wrote him back and sweet-talked him,” Siemens said. The coach also offered the player a $4,000 tuition scholarship, which Groff accepted.

He has been on a streak ever since. A year ago, he advanced to the quarterfinals of the NAIA championships before losing to Karl Van Copenhagen of Bellhaven (Miss.) College--a loss that still festers in Groff’s psyche. He was ahead, 6-0, and serving with a 5-2 game lead in the second set when Groff self-destructed.

“I underestimated my ability at that time,” he said. “I didn’t believe in myself totally.”

That, by all indications, is no longer a problem. “If I’m serving well,” Groff said, “there’s no way anyone can break me.”

Groff has improved his powers of concentration through what Siemens terms “mental toughness” training sessions. Players visualize match situations and focus on how they should respond. “We also do emotional-control stuff and relaxation,” he said.

In addition, Groff has his own witch-doctor approach in preparing mentally for a match. “I sit down by myself and hold a tennis ball in front of my face and look at it,” he said. “I sit and stare. That helps.

“If I’d had this last year, I wouldn’t have lost.”

Now, Groff is looking forward to the NAIA tournament in May in Kansas City.

After that, he will pick up his degree in business administration at CLU. Then he is going overseas to play on foreign satellite tours that are sponsored by the Assn. of Tennis Professionals. He plans to play in Finland, Spain, Nigeria and Bulgaria.

Bulgaria?

“I’m looking forward to going there,” he said. “It can’t be any worse than Lubbock.”