TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : Pasarell’s Two Chances: Slims and None

So now that Sonny Bono will play host to a Virginia Slims tournament at his racket club in Palm Springs, does it mean that instead of “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby,” the slogan now is “I Got You, Babe”?

There is nothing like a little controversy to liven up tennis. Charlie Pasarell was stunned to learn that the two-year-old Virginia Slims of Indian Wells would never see a third birthday at Hyatt Grand Champions, but move instead to Palm Springs in 1991.

Actually, Pasarell’s reaction was much more acute.

“When I learned they might take the tournament away, I felt I was slapped in the face,” said Pasarell, who was the tournament promoter. “When I learned they were taking it to Palm Springs, I felt like I was stabbed in the back.”

International Management Group, which owns the tournament, doesn’t quite see it that way.

“Really, what it comes down to, it’s just a business decision by IMG,” Barbara Perry of IMG said. “I don’t think there should be any hard feelings here. It doesn’t make sense.”

Perry said IMG leased the tournament to Pasarell at Grand Champions but did not want to continue the arrangement since none of the other three Virginia Slims tournaments owned by IMG are operated under such conditions. Even so, Perry said she offered Pasarell a five-year contract last fall to keep the tournament at Grand Champions, but Pasarell refused.

Before it was relocated to Indian Wells, the tournament spent two years in New Orleans. Perry said Bono’s club is likely to be only a temporary site until a permanent location is decided upon. Bono has 11 tennis courts at his club, and there are plans to ring one with bleachers to seat 5,000 people.

Perry said IMG is negotiating with developers who own the Canyon Hotel and a surrounding 540-acre tract where a tennis facility might be built.

Pasarell, who sent letters to the female players critical of the tournament move, said he still does not know why Indian Wells lost the event.

“I always thought, what is wrong, let’s fix it,” Pasarell said. “Ninety-five percent of whatever they suggested, I did. I told them, ‘Don’t hurt women’s tennis by taking this event from here. Have patience.’ ”

Instead of a week of women’s tennis as the prelude to his $1-million Newsweek Champions Cup men’s event, Pasarell plans an over-35 men’s tournament and a men’s Challenger Series event for aspiring ATP touring pros. Meanwhile, the new Virginia Slims tournament will be running concurrently, competing for fans and media attention 30 minutes away in Palm Springs.

Said Pasarell: “I guess we’ll have two tennis tournaments going on at the same time.”

Pasarell plans even more direct competition to the Virginia Slims tournament.

“Believe you me, there will be a great women’s tennis event played at Grand Champions,” Pasarell said. “I will make it happen. It may not happen in ‘91, but it will happen. If Virginia Slims doesn’t want to come here, I’ll find my own sponsors.”

If so, Pasarell must persuade the Women’s International Pro Tennis Council to sanction a new tournament that competes with an existing one, which may be a hard sell, even for someone with the persuasive powers of Pasarell.

Seeing doubles: The four top-ranked players in men’s doubles--Rick Leach, Jim Pugh, Pieter Aldrich and Danie Visser--will play in the $250,000 Volvo/Los Angeles tournament at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA July 30-Aug. 5.

As teams, Leach and Pugh are ranked No. 1, and Aldrich and Visser are ranked No. 3. The No. 6-ranked team of Jorge Lozano and Todd Witsken is also in the field.

Cheese Tour?: Jennifer Capriati is not the only one to make her debut on the women’s professional tennis scene this year. Also new is Kraft General Foods, which is halfway through its first year of sponsoring the women’s game after replacing Virginia Slims as the tour’s overall sponsor.

The Kraft General Foods World Tour consists of 64 tournaments in 21 countries with prize money of $23 million. But tennis is not all that KGF is selling. Tom Keim, director of event marketing for KGF, said the company hopes that tennis heightens the visibility of its products, along with making more people aware of what they are.

So far, Kraft General Foods is about where it expected to be in its first year of sponsorship, Keim said, pointing toward the company’s philosophy of how they use the sponsorship in conjunction with tennis.

Said Keim: “We’re creating an association between products and active lifestyles--good demographic groups--people who care about what they eat.”

Such a strategy hasn’t stopped the food puns. The media guide of the Women’s Tennis Assn. referred to Kraft General Foods’ reign this way: “A Whole New Flavor in Women’s Tennis.”

But puns aside, it’s probably a good bet that the players will have little trouble distinguishing their new sponsor. At the end of the year, the player with the most points from tournament finishes will win $500,000 and a new Jaguar.

Status report: It may be the most exclusive tennis club in the world. Five hard courts are finished at Sherwood Country Club, part of the 1,900-acre Sherwood Valley created by entrepreneur David Murdock near Thousand Oaks. Tennis director Roscoe Tanner said the remaining hard courts as well as grass and clay courts will be finished in a few months.

Stan Smith, a consultant to the project, is designing the layout of the courts and the tennis clubhouse for the Country Club.

Want to join? A membership is $150,000.

Tennis Notes

Jan Kodes and Joseph F. Cullman have been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. Kodes, a former Czechoslovakian Davis Cup performer, won the French Open in 1970 and ‘71, and Wimbledon in 1973. Cullman is a former chairman of the U.S. Open and, as the chief executive officer of Philip Morris, started Virginia Slims’ sponsorship of the women’s tour in 1970. . . . Jack Kramer is the honorary chairman of Casa Colina’s eighth World Wheelchair Tennis Invitational Sept. 28-30 at South End Racket and Health Club in Torrance. . . . Stefan Edberg will play an exhibition July 30 at the Newport Beach Tennis Club. The event is a benefit for the Orange County-based National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis. . . . Steve Bryan, 19, of Katy, Tex., the 1990 NCAA singles champion from Texas, has turned professional after two years at the university.