Ojai Tennis : Farrow Turns Tables on Melville

This time, after so many previous faulty starts, it looked as if USC senior Scott Melville was finally going to make a name for himself at Ojai.

Every year, Melville has been eliminated early in singles play at the Ojai Valley tennis tournament. But this spring, Melville arrived here with a major collegiate singles title to his credit and a No. 4 national ranking. Surely, success wouldn’t elude him again.

Somehow, once again, it did.

What kept Melville from reaching the final four in the Pacific 10 Conference singles was an inspired Buff Farrow, a junior at UCLA who only two weeks ago--when USC beat UCLA in a dual match--won only three games from Melville.

To Melville Friday, that must have seemed like two years ago. He lost to Farrow in their quarterfinal match, 6-0, 6-4.

“I didn’t fight hard enough in the first set,” said Melville, who lost in the opening round last year. “And I didn’t start fighting in the second set until it was too late. I was already down a service break. . . . I’ve never done well here.”

Melville’s coach, Dick Leach, agreed, saying: “He’s never had good tournaments here, not even in the juniors.”

And, it was just Melville’s luck to play someone who was due for a good tournament here, and someone who remembered the match two weeks ago all too well.

Last year here, Farrow had to default in his second-round singles match because of a wrist injury, and in 1986, he lost a one-sided match in the first round.

“Yeah, (the recent loss to Melville) had something to do with today,” said Farrow, who is ranked No. 28. “It fired me up and I was eager to get another chance. Last time, he played well and I didn’t play so well. It was a combination of the two. Today, the shoe was kind of on the other foot.”

Farrow will play teammate Brian Garrow in today’s semifinals. Garrow advanced with a 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 victory over USC freshman Byron Black, coming back from a 5-3 third-set deficit.

In the other semifinal, Carl Chang of California will play Jeff Tarango, Stanford sophomore. Chang, a freshman at Cal and the older brother of professional player Michael Chang, defeated UCLA’s Jason Netter, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5. Tarango had little trouble with Robert Bierens of UCLA, winning, 6-4, 6-1.

The Pac-10 women’s singles event also has had its share of surprising results. On Thursday, Alissa Finerman of Cal, last year’s finalist, lost in the opening round, and No. 3-ranked Tami Whitlinger of Stanford defaulted in her second-round match.

The trend continued in Friday’s quarterfinals. No. 18-ranked Teri Whitlinger of Stanford defeated No. 5 Trisha Laux of USC, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4. UCLA freshman Stella Sampras, who usually plays No. 6 for the Bruins, defeated her higher-rated teammate, Jessica Emmons, 7-6, 7-6.

In the other two quarterfinal matches, Lisa Green of Stanford, 1987 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. singles semifinalist, beat UCLA’s Kirsten Dreyer, 7-5, 6-4, and Stanford’s Kay Tittle beat Lupita Novelo of USC, 6-3, 6-2.

Teri Whitlinger will play Green, and Tittle will play Sampras in today’s semifinals.