Women’s Tennis Tournament at Indian Wells : Shriver Takes Care of Business, and Her Friend

Pam Shriver and Elise Burgin have been friends since they were 8 years old, so right after Shriver put her racket down following her match Thursday, she phoned Burgin in Baltimore.

Shriver probably wouldn’t have called her longtime tennis friend, but she had a good reason. Elise’s mother, Paulina Burgin, was killed last weekend in an automobile accident.

So Shriver’s 6-2, 6-3 second-round victory over Anne Minter in the Virginia Slims of Indian Wells really wasn’t as routine as it might have seemed on the surface.

Burgin, reached at her home in Baltimore, said she laughed when Shriver called her, stirring some familiar feelings.

“It’s so funny,” Burgin said. “I felt like the mother waiting at home for the kid to call. I felt like my mother waiting for me to call. ‘How’d you do, honey?’ ”

She did pretty well. Shriver was returning to singles for the first time since losing to Catarina Lindqvist in the third round of the Australian Open and after pulling out of the Virginia Slims of Washington, suffering from a case of mini-burnout.

But she was also returning to the court at Hyatt Grand Champions after an emotionally taxing two days with Burgin in Baltimore, flying there right after winning the doubles with Katrina Adams in the U.S. Hardcourts at San Antonio.

Burgin said that Martina Navratilova and Kathy Rinaldi also flew unexpectedly to Baltimore to be with her. Burgin treasured their kindness, just as she had when Carling Bassett Seguso and Lori McNeil sat up with her that long night after she learned of her mother’s death.

Shriver is something special, Burgin said.

“She like came in and took over,” Burgin said. “She was just like a rock. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She’s the most amazing person.”

Shriver said her phone call to Burgin had a message for both of them.

“It’s just important that I come here for myself, but I also got it into her head that life keeps going,” she said.

On Thursday, Shriver presented a nice target at the net for Minter to try her passing shots, but this would not be a repeat of their match at the Australian Open in 1988, when Minter won.

Although Shriver had not played singles in five weeks, her doubles have kept her sharp. Shriver was particularly effective in the first set.

Shriver lost only three points on her serve in the first set and said she didn’t make a bad shot until missing an easy forehand volley at 30-30 in the second game of the second set.

Minter broke Shriver in that game and again in the fourth, but it did her no good because she lost her own serve twice.

“I played very patchy,” Minter said.

With Minter serving at 3-3, she double-faulted to break point, which Shriver cashed by forcing Minter to hit a backhand passing shot wide.

Shriver was home free when Minter double-faulted twice in the final game, the last time at match point.

Afterward, Shriver wore ice packs on her right shoulder and right elbow, but maintained that she is in reasonably good shape, all things considered.

Out on the court, Shriver found some relief from all that’s been going on around her. But once the match was over, she couldn’t wait to call Burgin.

“We’ve had a lifetime of tennis together,” Shriver said.

The first tennis outfit Ted Tinling designed was for the legendary Suzanne Lenglen in 1937.

Since then, Tinling, 88, an international liaison man for Virginia Slims, has created more than 1,000 tennis outfits--sometimes in velvet, often with rhinestones or sequins--for several generations of women.

His favorite design?

“I cannot say,” Tinling insisted. “A good gardener has no favorite flowers.”

Tinling retired from designing eight years ago, but Du Pont, one of the sponsors of the Virginia Slims of Indian Wells, coaxed him out of retirement to create his vision of a tennis outfit for the 1990s.

“The body suit is the thing of the future,” said Tinling, who charged that today’s designers have overlooked the show business aspect of women’s tennis clothing.

“What we have now are tacky, graffiti-covered shirts,” he said.

Tennis Notes

Another seeded player fell by the wayside Thursday, following top-seeded Chris Evert and fifth-seeded Lori McNeil. Nineteen-year-old Australian Nicole Provis, seeded seventh, was defeated by Jana Novotna, 3-6, 7-6, 6-3. Novotna, a 20-year-old Czech, will play Helena Sukova in the second match on Stadium Court today. Sukova beat Novotna the last time they played, in an exhibition last year in Czechoslovakia, 7-6, 7-5. . . . Pam Shriver meets Jenny Byrne in the first match on Stadium Court today. Byrne defeated Terry Phelps, 6-4, 6-4.