Ojai Tennis Tournament : Galbraith Takes All-UCLA Final

Name the great American doubles teams of the last 10 years.

--McEnroe and Fleming.

--Flach and Seguso.

--Leach and Pugh.

Are you ready for Garrow and Galbraith?

After the biggest singles victory of his career, Pat Galbraith talked about finishing his last quarter of school at UCLA, then joining Bruin teammate Brian Garrow on the professional tour, possibly to debut in July at the Newport, R.I., tournament.

“We think we can do pretty well,” Galbraith said.

The left-handed serve-and-volley specialist from Tacoma, Wash., did pretty well on his own at the Ojai Valley tournament. He won the Pacific 10 singles championship Sunday with a startlingly easy, 6-2, 6-1, victory over UCLA teammate Buff Farrow.

Even though they have played on the same college team, Galbraith and Farrow played each other only once before, in a junior event when they were 15 years old. Galbraith won that one, too, in straight sets.

Farrow, a singles specialist, wilted under the constant pressure of Galbraith’s volleys, although Galbraith got his first break on a double fault by Farrow. Bad luck didn’t help, either.

Serving at 2-3 in the first set, Farrow saved one break point when Galbraith sent a forehand approach into the net, but Farrow double-faulted on the second.

Galbraith held serve to lead, 5-2, then broke Farrow again to win the first set. Farrow hit a forehand that clipped the net cord and bounced wide to set up a break point that Galbraith won on a deftly placed drop shot that Farrow could only touch with his racket.

“He just never gave me a chance to get in the match,” said Farrow, who at No. 7 is ranked 53 places higher than Galbraith in singles.

The only break Galbraith needed in the second set was in the second game when he broke Farrow with a backhand volley winner. Down 0-5, Farrow held serve, but Galbraith closed the match quickly, though not before Farrow hit the net cord again with the ball bouncing wide.

“I was just hitting my first volley well and putting a lot of pressure on him,” Galbraith said. “He had to hit a great shot to win the point.”

Farrow didn’t hit enough great shots or lucky shots.

Galbraith is hoping to be a seeded singles player at the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament, but he said his tennis future will be as a doubles specialist. He and Garrow, reigning NCAA doubles champions, played in the U.S. Open last year and lost to Miloslav Mecir and Tomas Smid in the first round.

“Even after this, I’m still going to be known as a doubles player, but maybe people will start worrying about me in singles a little bit now,” Galbraith said.

Like the men’s final, the Pac-10 women’s singles championship was a one-school affair. This time, it was Stanford, the runaway team champion, with Sandra Birch playing teammate Debbie Graham.

Birch won, 6-1, 1-6, 6-2, in a match in which the loser said the sound from the television booth played a part in her defeat.

Graham complained that she often heard the comments of Prime Ticket announcer Mike Walden during the match.

“It was so distracting,” she said. “You are about to serve at a crucial point and you hear how many double faults you have.”

Graham had 13 of them, which in itself was more than enough to cause her trouble, no matter how troublesome it may have been to hear continual updates.

Birch said she got an earful, too, but tuned everything out. For her, it was more of a geographical dislike.

“I’d keep hearing, ‘Debbie Graham of Fountain Valley’ so I blocked the rest of it out,” said Birch, who is from Huntington Bay, N.Y.