Tennis / Sam Farmer : Braemar Pro Brings Players’ Egos Down a Level

About this time each year, Niesi Sie conducts a which hunt. A which-is-which hunt, to be exact.

Sie, the tennis pro at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana, must determine which players deserve which classification for the club singles championships that begin Saturday.

Players are placed in an A, B or C division depending on their skill level. Patrons choose the division they feel appropriate, but Sie invariably scours the sign-up sheets for impostors .

Some club egos, it seems, carry higher than top-spin lobs.

“Half the Cs sign up as Bs,” Sie said. “We never have any sign up as Cs. They’d rather die than admit they’re a C.”

Sie says the problem is not as pronounced at public courts.

“At the private clubs, the people are kind of sheltered and kind of indignant about (their rating),” he said. “At public clubs, the people are much more honest about the assesment of their play. But everybody thinks they’re better than they are.”

After this tournament, Sie is planning to do away with the current rating system at Braemar. Instead, the club will use the National Tennis Rating Program that rates players on a scale of 1.0 to 7.0.

Using the NTRP scale, a touring pro is about a 7.0, a collegiate player is a 6.5, a good open player is a 6.0, most club pros rate a 5.5 and a top A player is a 5.0.

“With the new system, a 5.0 is always going to have a close match with another 5.0,” said Sie, who classifies himself as being slightly better than a 6.0. “There might be huge differences at the B level. Nothing is standardized from club to club.”

Sets of a different sort: Peter Moraweicki and Brian Giffin, Camarillo High’s No. 1 doubles team, lost the Southern Section championship Saturday to Corona del Mar’s Rob Atkin and Doug Scheulin, 6-4, 7-6 (7-2).

Although the Camarillo team had won the high school division of the Ojai Valley tournament and was the favorite to take the Southern Section title, Giffin was unfazed by the loss.

Said Giffin to Coach Lee Talley: “I think it’s time to take a week off and do a little surfing.”

Return engagement: The Glendale Junior Public Parks tournament will begin Saturday at Fremont Park, and Bob McKay, the coach of the Glendale team, is looking for an encore from the virtually unchanged girls’ team that advanced to the regional semifinals last year.

Claudia Bauman, Debbie Boger, Kieu Liem, Kristy Knieding and Deborah Wacker (all of Glendale High), Megan Swan (La Canada High), Corey Simmons (Burbank) and Jennie Lowry (Chatsworth) return for Glendale, which loses just one player, Maria Kim.

“We’re experienced, but the key is the teams from the other areas are awfully strong,” McKay said. “We’re not the favorites.”

Other tournament teams include Burbank, Pacific Palisades and North Hollywood.

How they rate: Pierce, Moorpark and Glendale colleges recently were listed among the top 20 junior college teams in the state by the First Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn.

Sang Kim and Mason Harris of Pierce (the No. 5 team), ranked 21st and 29th in singles, were rated seventh in doubles and were named All-State in doubles.

Darin Pleasant of Moorpark (No. 8) was ranked third in singles and, with partner John Studebaker, 18th in doubles. Pleasant also was named All-State and All-American.

Glendale was ranked 17th.

Free for all: A free tennis clinic for boys and girls aged 5 to 18--and honoring Pierce College Coach Paul Xanthos--will be held at McCambridge Park in Burbank from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.

The clinic, funded by local corporate and private sponsors, will be led by 16 pros from the Wilson advisory staff. Sixteen cases of balls used will be donated to the Burbank Unified School District.

Veteran pro Jack Kramer also will be in attendance. Participants will receive a clinic T-shirt and two cans of balls.

Information: 818-768-3343.

Tennis hotbed: Ventura County is arguably one of the richest areas in the country for collegiate tennis prospects.

Area women faring well include Wendy Ouwendijk (Tennessee), Julie Gaiser (Pepperdine), Val Stukovski and Jandrea Ouwendijk (Fresno State), Onnaca Heron (Cal Poly Pomona), Julie Tullberg (San Diego State), Amanda Lynch (UC San Diego) and Mimi Burgos (Clemson).

Among the men are Matt Simpson (Cal Lutheran) and Peter Kong (Dartmouth).

Up-and-coming talents include Thousand Oaks High’s Kirstin Smith, who will play for Pepperdine in the fall; Camarillo’s Peter Moraweicki (Texas El Paso) and Brian Giffin (UC Santa Barbara); and Buena’s Kenny Pedroza (Stanford).