UC Irvine Notebook / John Weyler : Kaplan’s Choice Might Save His Promising Pro Tennis Career

A funny thing happened to Mark Kaplan on his way to a career in professional tennis. He discovered the joy--not to mention the value--of the collegiate game.

Kaplan came to UC Irvine from Johannesburg, South Africa, with a wealth of talent, a few junior matches at Wimbledon under his belt and a firm grasp of his goal for the future. He wanted to play with the big boys for the big purses.

As a sophomore, he was a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. semifinalist in singles and figured he was ready to make the jump.

“I was seriously considering turning pro after my sophomore year,” he said. But Kaplan chose to remain at Irvine and two years later, he’s sure he made the right decision.

“I’ve learned so many things since then,” he said, “lessons I would have had to learn as a pro . . . and that might have ended my pro career before it got started.”

Topping the lessons-learned list:

How to Gain Perspective for Fun and Profit.

“Let’s face it, tennis is an individual game and it’s easy to get wrapped up in your own thing,” Kaplan said.

If you’ve ever spent any time around Greg Patton, the Irvine tennis coach, you probably don’t believe one of his proteges would utter such blasphemy. But somehow, even under the daily deluge of Patton propaganda stressing the virtue of team values, Kaplan was all wrapped up in Kaplan.

“I’d always played No. 1 (singles) and once last year Coach put me down to No. 2,” Kaplan said. “I thought, ‘What’s going on? Doesn’t he have any confidence in me?’ It was a huge blow and I lost at No. 2 to a guy I should have beaten easily.”

Last winter, Kaplan went back to South Africa for the holidays and “laid on the beach for three weeks.” He returned with a nice tan but a ghost of his former game.

When the season began, he was playing No. 3 singles.

“I started to realize that winning at No. 3 was just as important for the team as winning at No. 1,” he said. “We all contribute equally. The whole team’s goal is to win the NCAAs (May 20-27 at Athens, Ga.). Everyone’s so excited about the opportunity and I really came to enjoy the team concept.”

Patton fairly beams when he talks about his latest--and greatest--convert.

“As a coach, the greatest joy of this season has been Mark’s enthusiasm as a team player,” Patton said. “It’s really had a great effect on the whole team. He’s raised them and they’ve lifted him.”

How to Win and Keep Winning.

Kaplan said it took him almost three weeks just to get back in shape after his Christmas layoff and considerably longer than that to get back in sync. But he was never worried that he wouldn’t regain his past form.

“You don’t just lose a talent,” he said.

And when he found his rhythm, Kaplan hung onto it like a metronome. He soon was back playing No. 1 singles for Irvine . . . and winning. Since Feb. 26, Kaplan is 22-1 and that includes a streak of 20 in a row, which included a victory over Clemson’s John Sullivan (then ranked No. 7).

“It’s funny, when I started to play really well, I wasn’t concerned with wins and losses, just concentrating on trying to win every single point,” he said.

“I learned a lot about how to keep a winning streak alive, by closing the book on each match when it was over and trying to give my mind a rest. Also, when you’re hitting the ball really well, you don’t need to work on your stroke as much, so I did a lot of cross-training, mostly cycling, to improve my fitness.”

How to Learn from Losing.

Kaplan’s streak ended last week when Arizona State’s Brian Gyetko beat him, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Gyetko was 6-13 going into the match.

“I didn’t think that much about the streak until I hit 20,” Kaplan said. “That’s a pretty imposing number. After a while, you just expect the wins to come and you get comfortable. You stop improving.

“Losing put me right again. You realize that everyone is pretty close to you and if you fall back just a little, they’ll catch right up.”

So, this summer, armed with a college education on the courts--not to forget a degree in economics--and what Patton calls “tons of talent,” Kaplan will give the pro circuit a try.

Patton, not surprisingly, figures Kaplan will be successful.

And, even less surprisingly, he’s ready with a metaphor to describe the perils of premature entry into the professional “pool.”

“A lot of guys dive into the pool and never come up because they hit the bottom, get knocked out and drown,” he said. “But I think Mark’s prepared to motivate himself and take care of himself.

“He’s got one of the most beautiful forehands I’ve ever seen and a textbook forehand volley. He came here with an OK backhand, now it’s a great backhand. And he’s developed a very good backhand volley.”

Kaplan has yet a few other things going for him. His parents, who live in Stamford, Conn., are “pretty well off,” according to Kaplan, so he plans to hit the pro ranks with a practice companion and at least a part-time traveling coach.

“You want to be in a situation where the only thing you have to worry about is how to hit the next ball,” Kaplan said.

Right now, though, he’s got other concerns.

“It sure would be great to win that NCAA (team) title,” he says. “It’s fun to celebrate an individual thing, but there’s nothing like celebrating as a team.”

The drive to start a Division III football program at Irvine seems to have lost some impetus and the issue might not be on the ballot next week during student elections as previously scheduled.

Chancellor Jack Peltason met with student proponents of football Wednesday and told them the school financial planning office had determined the referendum, which would levy a $12-per-quarter student fee to fund the football team, would not provide sufficient funding.

“They were taking into account facilities that weren’t part of the plan,” said Jim Breslo, head of a group of student backers. “We’re trying to get the planning office to do a rush job and re-figure it in time to get it on next week’s ballot.”

The school newspaper, The New University, ran an editorial this week urging students to vote against the referendum. The editorial pointed out that the student body has yet to offer much fan support for basketball or any other sport at Irvine.

For the referendum to pass, 60% of those voting must approve and there must be a 25% turnout. Only twice in school history--once when the Bren Center issue was on the ballot and again when the new University Center went to vote--have 25% or more of the Irvine students voted.

Anteater Notes

Vince O’Boyle, Irvine’s track and cross-country coach, has been named head coach for the West women’s track team in the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival scheduled July 27-30 in Oklahoma City. O’Boyle, in his seventh year at Irvine, has been selected Big West men’s or women’s cross-country coach of the year nine times. “It’s an honor and I’m looking forward to it,” O’Boyle said. “It’s work, but it’s fun. I did it once before (as an assistant in 1986), but this should be more exciting because I’ll be the head guy.” . . . Some of the Anteaters’ entry forms were lost en route to the Mt. SAC Relays committee and O’Boyle was more than a little concerned when he discovered that some athletes--such as 10,000-meter All-American Beth McGrann, for instance--were not entered in their specialties. The paper work problem was ironed out, however, and almost 50 Irvine runners will be competing in the 31st annual running of the meet this weekend.