Chang Wins Easily, Then Starts Searching for Help

Wanted: Looking for a tennis coach, or something like a ball machine with legs. Backhand compliments accepted. Lots of travel. Work with teen-ager.

Michael Chang put in a light, 55-minute workout Thursday night at the L.A. Tennis Center at UCLA in the $425,000 Volvo/Los Angeles tournament--he blitzed 23-year-old qualifier Kenny Thorne, 6-1, 6-1--then got down to serious business.

He took out a help-wanted ad.

When Chang begins his third full year on the pro tour, he wants to have a coach right there with him.

Why?

“Being in the top 10 and having expections high, it’s always nice to have a coach help you out,” Chang said.

Coaches are nice to have around, all right. They can grab that can of tennis balls off the top shelf for you. But finding your coach, that’s what is so hard.

Chang would like former touring player Jose Higueras to be his coach, but Higueras is the pro at La Quinta and doesn’t want to travel on the circuit.

“That would be just like playing again,” Higueras said.

Chang said he understood Higueras’ reluctance.

‘It’s very hard to have somebody full-time on the tour,” Chang said. “If I was in his position, with a family and all, I wouldn’t ever be coaching.”

Joe Chang, who has coached his son in the past, said Michael will no longer be part of the United States Tennis Assn. player development program that supplied coaches such as Higueras and Brian Gottfried.

“It’s time to move on,” Joe Chang said.

Gottfried, who is director of tennis at the Association of Tennis Professionals headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Fla., will no longer coach Chang on grass courts, as he did this year.

So as Chang searches for a coach, he found the quarterfinals by gliding past Thorne.

The Georgia Tech All-American, who turned pro last summer, has won one Grand Prix match in his career, and that was Monday against Peter Lundgren.

Playing Chang wasn’t an easy assignment, said Thorne, who was asked if he was nervous.

“Obviously,” he said.

After Thorne won the first game of the match, Chang won nine consecutive games. Down 6-1, 3-0, Thorne won his second game of the match, turned to the stands and said: “It’s a long time since I won a game.”

Next up for Chang is Australian Darren Cahill, who looked extremely sharp in his 6-3, 6-2, victory over Jimmy Arias.

Chang has never played Cahill, but it probably won’t matter, since this is a new Cahill anyway.

Because of a leg injury, the U.S. Open was his first tournament appearance in six weeks. Cahill is also wielding a new, wide-body racket, which takes some getting used to.

But Cahill thinks this may be the right time to play Chang.

“He hasn’t had the greatest of summers since the French,” Cahill said.

Cahill, the 23-year-old son of an Australian rules football player from Adelaide, chose tennis over football when he was 14.

Ten years ago, 21-year-old Kevin Curren of the University of Texas won the NCAA singles title, and Thursday the veteran reached the quarterfinals by mining his pro experience.

Curren served 10 aces and fought off four consecutive match points in the third set tiebreaker before beating 20-year-old David Wheaton, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6).

Curren’s explanation?

“I play my best when I’m down,” he said.

Curren’s best became necessary when Wheaton held a 6-2 lead in the tiebreaker. Wheaton, the former Stanford star, had four match points but he made one crucial mistake.

On the first match point, Wheaton served to the forehand, and Curren hit a winner.

“I should have gone up the middle,” Wheaton said. “That was a big mistake.”

Wheaton was asked when he realized his error.

“When the ball went by me down the line,” he said.

Another service-return winner plus consecutive volley winners, and Wheaton’s match points were history. Soon, so was he.

Curren goes on to meet Scott Davis in one quarterfinal match. Brad Gilbert faces Mikael Pernfors in another.

Wheaton’s best result in his first full year on the pro tour was the semifinals at Stratton Mountain, Vt., but he is still coming into his own as a serve-and-volley power player.

As for losing a handful of match points, at least Wheaton already may have goten it out of his system. “It doesn’t happen too often, not four match points in a row,” he said.

Reaching the quarterfinal round doesn’t happen too often to Andrew Sznajder, but he’s there for the second time this year.

Sznajder (pronounced like Schneider) is ranked No. 55, but he has won only $48,845 this year. The Canadian Davis Cup player beat Pieter Aldrich, 6-1, 6-4, and now meets Aaron Krickstein.

When he has a chance, Sznajder trains in the weight room at Pepperdine, where he played for two years. But Sznajder said there’s no reason to train his thoughts on Krickstein.

‘I’m not even going to worry about who is on the other side,” he said.

Not even if that person is a U.S. Open semifinalist?

“Everybody is going to have one good week in the year,” Sznajder said.

Actually, Krickstein had two good weeks at the Open, and he needs two more good matches this week to make the final.