Manhattan Beach Tennis Tournament : Frazier Turning Heads; Magers Latest Victim

When Amy Frazier was 12, all those months ago, she stood out from the other girls her age for two reasons.

First, she was simply the best 12-year-old female tennis player in the country in 1985. Second, at 5 feet 8 inches, she stood over her peers by several inches.

“But I’ve only grown an eighth of an inch since then,” Frazier said.

Now, at 15, she may have stopped growing, but Frazier’s game and stature have grown immeasurably this week in the $300,000 Virginia Slims of Los Angeles tournament at the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach.

Thursday, Frazier showed that her second-round victory over No. 4-ranked Pam Shriver Tuesday night wasn’t a fluke. Frazier, ranked No. 119th in the world, defeated No. 12-seeded Gretchen Magers, 6-4, 7-5, in the round of 16. She’ll play No. 5-seeded Zina Garrison next.

Against Magers, Frazier rallied from a 2-4 first-set deficit. In the ninth game of the second set, she outlasted Magers in a 12-point game, winning on her third break point to go ahead, 5-4.

Then Magers responded to break Frazier at love. Frazier broke again and held her serve to advance to the quarterfinals.

“I got tentative,” Frazier said of losing her serve at love when it was 5-4. “I was just afraid to hit the ball. I just said to myself (at 6-5), ‘I have to hit out.’ That’s what I had been doing the whole match.”

Said Magers: “Usually, I like to serve and volley, but I would serve, and she would put it right by me. I’m sure that’s what she did to Pam. She had me off balance from the beginning.”

That’s exactly the way Frazier tries to play all her matches, by going for winners. Sometimes it works. Other times? Well, she has first-round losses in six tournaments, too.

Frazier, who is still an amateur, says it takes some time adjusting to the pro tour. For instance, Frazier’s match here against Shriver was played under lights, and she had only played at night one other time.

Also, in the past, she hadn’t always done well after recording a big win.

“I wasn’t sure if she would come through today,” said Amy’s mother, Carol Frazier, who was back home in Rochester, Mich. “It hasn’t been unusual for her to beat some (players) above her and then lose to some (players) ranked lower than her in the next round.”

It’s just the experience of getting used to a new thing, kind of like when Frazier had to adjust to being 5-8 at 12 years old, with size-9 shoes. Back then, not surprisingly, she didn’t exactly move gracefully.

“I did things like walk into walls,” Frazier said. “I’m not that klutzy now.”

Not so, according to Carol Frazier.

“Ask her about the time she walked into the net post at the French Open,” Amy’s mother said. “She had a baseball-sized lump on her thigh and kept on playing. She didn’t even know she had been injured. But that sort of thing is nothing new for her. She’d do the most unbelievable stuff, but never during points.”

For example, there was the time she fell down a flight of stairs when she was 12 and landed on her head, on concrete pavement.

“She is the biggest klutz in the world...until she starts playing,” Carol Frazier said.

That has become obvious to people like Shriver, Magers and the fans at Manhattan Beach this week. Yes, once again, Amy Frazier is making herself stand out.

Tennis Notes

Lori McNeil defeated Catarina Lindqvist 6-4, 6-7, 6-4 Thursday night to advance. Gabriela Sabatini, the third-seeded player who was a semifinalist here last year, dropped just six games in her victory over No. 14 Sara Gomer. Other winners were No. 5-seeded Zina Garrison, No. 6 Patty Fendick, No. 7 Anne Minter and No. 8 Stephanie Rehe. Top-seeded Chris Evert, playing in her first tournament since getting married to Andy Mill last month, has looked anything but rusty. She defeated 1988 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. finalist Halle Cioffi, 6-2, 6-0, in 52 minutes and lost just three points in the second set.