Po’s Tennis Predicament: To Turn Pro or Not to Turn Pro

Bright women like Kim Po usually don’t have trouble making decisions.

But the choice facing Po these days isn’t one of life’s easier questions.

Po is a former national scholar-athlete at Miraleste High. Heading into her sophomore year at UCLA, Po has been playing as an amateur on the women’s pro tennis tour this summer.

Looking at her results, you could say she likes the tour so far.

“I’m trying to play as much as I can to keep my rankings up,” Po said.

This week during doubles competition at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles at the Manhattan Beach Country Club, Po has been teaming with an archrival from her junior high and high school days, Alysia May.

Po, 18, and the May, 19, got a wild card into this week’s doubles draw and pulled off a couple of upsets.

On Wednesday, they faced the veteran team of Camille Benjamin and Anne Minter. Po and May fell behind quickly, losing the first set, 6-4.

But May started hitting crisp ground strokes and Po played some aggressive serve-and-volley tennis and the team rallied to beat Benjamin and Minter, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

“It was a really aggressive match,” Po said. “We were moving around a lot on our serves and our service returns.”

Po and May beat another veteran team--South Africa’s Elna Reinach and Australian Nicole Provis--on Thursday, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

They lost in Friday’s quarterfinals, 5-7, 5-7, to Elise Burgin and Rosalyn Fairbank-Nideffer, but Po is looking at the defeat as another learning experience.

The question facing Po is: To turn pro or not to turn pro?

For years one of the nation’s top junior players, Po has a lengthy tennis resume.

She won the Junior U.S. Open twice, was a member of the 1987 Junior Wrightman Cup team and toured Australia the same year as part of the USA team in the McDonald’s Challenge Cup.

At Miraleste, Po was a four-year starter. Miraleste won national prep championships in 1987 and 1988 with Po as one of its top singles players: Po won the CIF 4-A Division singles title as a junior.

As a senior, Po’s singles record was an amazing 60-0. The previous year she had a mark of 65-1, with the only loss coming in a 6-0 defeat to May--Los Angeles Westlake’s ace player--in the 4-A championships at the West End Tennis Club in Torrance.

“That was the only time I’ve beaten Kim,” May said. “She beat me every time we played each other in juniors.”

Po won her first collegiate tournament last year as a freshman at UCLA--the Rolex Intercollegiate Tennis Championships at UC Irvine in October--so she has some solid amateur credentials.

It didn’t take the 5-foot-3 Po long to win her first pro title, either.

She won the 1989 USTA Circuit event in Fayetteville, N.C., shortly after graduating from high school. She defeated Laura Glitz, Susan Leo, Sandra Cacic, Tami Whitlinger, and Rene Simpson to win the title and watched her singles ranking rise to No. 232 by September.

But she had to turn over the Fayetteville winner’s check to maintain her amateur status.

So far, Po has won more than $11,000 on the pro circuit, none of which she could accept.

But if you ask her when she’s planning to accept some of those paychecks, Po shakes her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know.”

Po is a very serious student. At Miraleste, she was a homecoming and prom court princess and won the Army Reserve national scholar-athlete award.

There’s also a strong family attachment to UCLA. Both of Po’s parents--Jonathan, a radiologist, and mother Harriet--attended UCLA. Po’s brother Greg was a ranked junior player and is a junior at UCLA.

So you can count on UCLA women’s tennis Coach Bill Zaima having Po somewhere in his lineup this fall.

“I’ll probably play No. 1, 2, or 3 singles,” Po said. “Who knows? We usually don’t have a set lineup.”

Po had a lot of success early last season for UCLA, but her season ended early after she developed tendinitis in an elbow.

She recovered in time to play doubles with May at the Pilkington Glass Ladies’ Championships in Eastbourne, England, and a week later at Wimbledon. Both times, Po and May lost in the qualifying rounds.

Po and May have been good friends since they were 13 and they share a unique chemistry on the doubles court.

“We plan on playing a lot of tournaments together,” Po said. “We plan ahead on playing with each other if we know that we’ll be at the same tournament.”

Po and the freckle-faced, ponytailed May--who turned pro in April--seem to genuinely enjoy playing together, often sharing laughs with each other between points.

“It’s nice to be able to play with somebody that you’re really good friends with,” May said. “Kim and I can be serious when we have to be, but we can also joke around.”

Their partnership has also taken them far from home--to England this summer and to Mexico last summer, where they won a doubles tournament in Puerto Vallarta and were runners-up in Guadalajara.

“It’s a good blend,” Po said. “We don’t yell at each other if we miss points because we’re friends. Everybody misses the ball sometimes, and if you yell at them for it, it makes tension. No one’s perfect.”