Neighbors Meet at Wimbledon : Manhattan Beach’s Jeff Tarango Faced Jim Pugh in His Pro Debut

Court 16 of the All-England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club is a strange place to see a familiar face.

Especially when you have traveled thousands of miles to make your professional tennis debut on one of the world’s most famous rectangles of grass.

Just ask Jeff Tarango of Manhattan Beach, 20 years old and fresh from the halls of Stanford University. On a rainy day in late June, Tarango stood in the shadow of Wimbledon’s fabled Centre Court--where Boris Becker would later win his third singles title--staring across the lawn at Jim Pugh, a veteran pro from just around the corner in Palos Verdes Estates.

“It was weird,” Tarango said. “Going all that way to turn pro, and then you play someone who lives four miles from you.”

Pugh beat his younger neighbor in four sets. But Tarango had scored a victory of his own. Even though he lost his debut, Tarango spent his first few hours as a tennis professional amid pageantry, royalty and strawberries and cream.

“It’s tough not to get caught up in all the prestige of the tournament,” Tarango said. “I suppose it comes with experience--to treat Wimbledon as just another tennis match. But I was mesmerized by the whole thing. It was my first Wimbledon. The tradition just catches up with you.”

It isn’t easy to catch up with Tarango anymore. Since turning pro just before Wimbledon in June, the Mira Costa High School graduate has been earning his living in men’s tournaments on the Eastern seaboard. He has made four stops since Wimbledon, from Rhode Island to Washington. His sixth pro tournament is the North American Tennis Open this week at Livingston, N.J.

“This is my future for a while,” said Tarango, who is now ranked No. 84 in the world. “Tennis is my livelihood.”

Tarango has always been serious. At Stanford, between leading the Cardinal to two NCAA championships, Tarango posted a 3.1 grade-point average as a philosophy major.

Tarango also entered nine professional tournaments over the last year and won the Wanetka Pro Classic in Evanston, Ill., a $50,000 event, as an amateur.

At this time last year, Tarango was battling Andre Agassi in the final of the Livingston tournament. He lost, 6-3, 6-4, but would have pocketed $10,000 for reaching the final if not for his amateur status. And he would have made $7,000 for his victory at Evanston. The winnings that Tarango bypassed “more than would have paid for his tuition,” said Stanford tennis Coach Dick Gould.

“When you’re playing as an amateur, you don’t recognize the money as much,” Tarango said. “I was playing against guys who were playing for a living, so I was really loose. It was more of an adventure.”

By the time Tarango upset Australian Peter Doohan in the first round of the Australian Open in January, his ranking had risen to No. 88 on the Assn. of Tennis Professionals computer. When he returned to Stanford, by virtue of his computer ranking, Tarango was the No. 1 amateur in the world.

That’s when he decided to turn professional.

“I realized I came back to college for the college experience and not for the improvement of my tennis,” Tarango said. “I decided I couldn’t keep cutting myself short of my dream of becoming a pro tennis player. I could have had fun in college, but I had to be responsible and I didn’t want to waste my talent. That would be a hard thing to live with, I think.”

So Tarango finished his junior year at Stanford. He went 17-8 as Stanford’s No. 1 singles player and lost in the first round of the NCAA singles championships to Southern Methodist’s Brian Devening.

Tarango and partner Alex O’Brien became the top-ranked college doubles team in the nation, going undefeated until they were beaten in the NCAA semifinals--college tennis’ Final Four--by Trevor Kronemann and Mike Briggs of UC Irvine.

Tarango was named Stanford’s scholar-athlete this year. He has always been a serious student: At Mira Costa, where he won the Southern Section 4-A singles title in 1986 under Coach Jeff Verner, Tarango managed a 3.7 GPA and was selected as an academic All-American. Still, tennis beckoned, and he left Stanford and his studies of the existentialist philosopher Albert Camus a year short of graduation.

He has had company with him on the road to ease his mind. His father, Bob, is traveling with him now through the tournaments on the East Coast. His mother, Mary, went with him to Wimbledon and the Australian Open.

“His father and I kind of take turns traveling with him,” Mary Tarango said. “At Wimbledon, we were both very much in awe of it. Jeff lost, but it was still neat to have a son participating in all of it.”

Aside from the stabilizing presence of his family, Tarango said his mother helps to analyze his game. She taught him the fundamentals of tennis before turning him over for coaching with Robert Lansdorp at Torrance’s West End Racquet Club.

“She checks up on my game and keeps me regimented,” Tarango said. “She taught me the basic things before I took lessons, and she made tennis fun for me instead of something I should be doing. I always hated team sports, but she made me play baseball and soccer just so I would be sure that I wanted to play tennis.”

Tarango keeps a cool presence on the court. He’s a left-handed counterpuncher who likes to patrol the baseline. And he’s a smart player--he oftens sets up points with his ground strokes and then comes in behind his big, wicked forehand.

“Jeff is able to forget a loss very quickly,” Gould said. “He’s resilient, and he doesn’t dwell on things. Some pro players start questioning themselves after they’ve taken a few losses in the Top 100. But Jeff has the inner makeup to avoid the downs--he can just snap right out of it.”

Tarango has taken some lumps in his first few weeks as a pro. But he’s also dished out a few.

He overwhelmed Sammy Giammalva in the first round of the Volvo Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., his second tournament as a pro. But in the second round, Tarango was beaten in straight sets by a grass-court veteran, Peter Lundgren of Sweden.

He reached the quarterfinals of his next event, the $200,000 OTB International in Schenectady, N.Y. Tarango blitzed past Canada’s Grant Connell and India’s Vijay Amritraj in the first two rounds, dropping only 13 games in the two matches. But in the quarters, he ran into Stanford alum Dan Goldie, the 1986 NCAA singles champ, and lost 1-6, 7-6, 6-3.

That performance earned Tarango the 16th seed in the Sovran Bank Classic in Washington, D.C., the next week, but he was upset in the second round by Gary Muller of South Africa in 106-degree heat. Tarango dropped seven straight games in the first set.

“It was way too hot,” Tarango said. “It may have been 106 in the shade, but it was 140 degrees on the court. It just baked up off the surface like a microwave.”

It was a bit cooler in Stratton Mountain, Vt., in last week’s Volvo International, but Tarango met a cool reception from seeded Jay Berger, who knocked him off in three sets. After the Livingston tournament, Tarango will go to Montreal for the Players International Canadian Open, then play an exhibition in New York as a final tuneup for the U.S. Open.

“I’m just one or two or three points away from where I want to be,” Tarango said. “A couple of those points could swing a whole match in my favor. I’m playing well; it’s just a matter of breaking through on the big points.”