Savanna Senior Stands Tall On, Off Court : Girls’ tennis: Cindy Kuragami, 5 feet 1 1/2, has never lost a set in Orange League play. She also excels in the classroom.

Look at her size and you wonder how Cindy Kuragami can be such a commanding figure on a tennis court.

Talk to her for a few minutes and the answer is clear: The 5-foot-1 1/2 senior at Savanna High School is not only talented, but confident as well.

“I know for a fact that teams in our league are shooting for me, but nobody has come flat out and said so,” Kuragami said.

Kuragami, 16, has never lost a set in Orange League play.

Including last week’s matches against Anaheim and Brea-Olinda, she has a career set record of 170-1. Besides losses in the Southern Section individual playoffs, Kuragami suffered a 6-3 setback against Monica Davis, then a senior at Troy, in a nonleague match her freshman year.

“I remember being excited about playing her,” Kuragami said. “I wanted to see how I could do against her.”

Now, the sneaker is on the other foot. Now, it is Kuragami who fuels the ambitions and aspirations of upset-minded foes seeking to dethrone the league’s most valuable player the past three seasons.

“She’s the best tennis player in the history of the school, with the exception maybe of John Swaino (who currently plays for Cypress College),” Savanna Coach Eric Hansen said. “Anyone else in the school she could probably beat.”

Hansen credits Kuragami’s success to her ability to decipher an opponent’s strategy and follow through with the game plan that will bring her victory.

“She analyzes well. She knows the game. She knows the proper hitting techniques,” Hansen said. “Some on the team value her opinion over mine. She’s very intelligent and plays a very intelligent game.”

That combination of brains and athletic skill has piqued the interest of colleges and universities around the country, which Kuragami said have made inquiries about her post-high school plans. She would like to attend an Ivy League school and major in a business-related field.

Kuragami, who had a 4.67 grade-point average the last grading period and won the team’s academic award in 1989, said tennis has always been secondary to hitting the books. It’s a stipulation her Japanese-born parents always have stressed.

“If the grades dropped, the tennis would go. It was that simple,” Kuragami said. “If I have a lot of homework one week, I just won’t practice. I’ll wind up playing anyways, but not as well as I could. That’s why I look forward to the summers, when all I have to think about is tennis.”

Tennis has been on Kuragami’s mind since she was 6 years old and her sister Kathy, now a freshman at Savanna and the team’s No. 2 singles player, was 4. They were getting bored with swimming lessons, Cindy said, and tennis seemed like a fun escape. But she soon fell in love with the sport.

Her evolution in tennis was similar to that of other young champions--junior titles, trophies, plaques. Then came high school and new laurels, although--contrary to what her record indicates--she had to work at developing her game.

“A lot of girls had stronger groundstrokes than I had, and I eventually would foul up somewhere,” said Kuragami, the eighth-ranked player in Southern California and the 42nd-ranked player nationally in the 16-and-under division of the U.S. Tennis Assn. “It was so frustrating to get to 39 balls and then miss the 40th. I never had a lot of patience for that when I first started (in high school), so I just came in to the net trying to end the game as quickly as possible.

“Now I think I’ve learned to mix it up. I’ve improved my groundstrokes to the point where I can rally with most of the girls and my serve now has become more of a weapon, where before I was just glad to get it in. Now I can place it where I can use it to my advantage.”

That’s what her opponents wanted to hear, no doubt.