Spin on Pro Circuit This Summer Would Ease Mall’s Workload : Tennis: Between tournaments, class work and the prom, Dana Hills junior has had full spring.

Anne Mall certainly isn’t the only teen-ager who’s looking forward to June, but she has a few more reasons to be daydreaming about those lazy days of summer than most of her Dana Hills High School classmates.

While her friends are strolling through the mall or lying on the beach this summer, Mall will be running back and forth a few feet behind a baseline somewhere, slugging cross-court forehands and whipping two-fisted backhands. And the only chance she’ll get to lie in the sun is when she dives for a passing shot at the net.

Still, it will seem like a vacation.

At the moment, Mall, a 16-year-old junior, is training three to four hours every day, struggling with an academic workload that includes four extra classes--she’s carrying two English courses, economics and a pre-calculus class, among others--so she can graduate this June. And she’s even attempting to wedge in an occasional flirt with a normal teen-age social life.

Take last weekend, for instance. On Friday, she played a quarterfinal match at the Seventeen Magazine Tournament of Champions in the morning and a semifinal match in the afternoon.

Then she hurried home to take a shower and fix her hair for the prom.

She came home early--OK, it was 3 a.m.--and lost in the finals Saturday, playing very much like a young lady who hadn’t slept much. Sunday, she played mixed doubles with her coach, Bob Hochstadter, in a charity event at the John Wayne Tennis Club. Good thing she didn’t have a lot of homework.

“Yeah, I guess (going to the prom) affected me a little bit,” Mall said Saturday, still smiling after losing to unseeded Beth Berris, 6-3, 6-3. “But I had a really good time.”

Peggy Mall hated to see her daughter lose. And she especially hated to see her lose because she played so poorly. But she was sure that letting her go to the prom was the right thing.

“It was the one thing we didn’t think she should miss,” she said. “She wanted to go very much. She’s already had to miss a lot because of tennis and she works so hard. She deserved this.”

There may be no more proms in Mall’s future, but there undoubtedly will be more tournament finals. The United States Tennis Assn. ranks her 10th in the country in the 18-and-under division--a division she could compete in for another two years--but she feels she’s ready to leave the amateurs behind and give the professional circuit a shot.

By graduating a year early, Mall can defer a scholarship offer from Stanford for one year and play on the pro tour. She can’t accept any prize money, but she hopes to be better equipped to make a realistic evaluation about her future.

“She’s really got the best of both worlds with the deferment,” Peggy Mall said. “It will make the decision about college that much easier because she’ll have a year to see where she stands. She’ll be older and a little more mature, too.”

The Malls moved from Libertyville, Ill., to Laguna Niguel in 1988. “My husband, Ben, was offered a job out here at an aerospace firm and he basically took it because of tennis,” she said. “If Anne’s career wasn’t so promising, I don’t think we would have been so quick to make the move.”

The year-round tennis weather helped. The abundance of coaching talent was a plus. The increased level of competition was an important factor. And Mall’s tennis career is looking more promising every day.

She’s older than Jennifer Capriati and a long way from Centre Court at Wimbledon, but Mall’s not pulling in the reins on any of her dreams just yet.

“I hope to turn pro,” she said. “I really think I’m very close to that level. I’m not worried about missing college. If I do well, I’ll turn pro. If I don’t, I’ll go to college.”

Mall has played in two pro tournaments, losing in the early rounds both times. She says she was very nervous, but believes she can compete with the best players in the world.

Clearly, she has the strokes. She has a big serve and, unlike many of her peers, a very strong second serve. A punishing two-handed backhand is her biggest weapon, but she volleys extremely well when she gives herself a chance by attacking without hesitation.

However, her concentration level fluctuates and her performances lack consistency as a result.

In an effort to improve her focus and round out her game, Mall has been working with two coaches recently, Hochstadter and Pancho Segura.

Segura is helping her with strategy, “making me aware of what’s going on within a point,” she says.

Hochstadter, who also coaches Fountain Valley’s Debbie Graham, the NCAA singles champion at Stanford, is putting an emphasis on net games and head games.

“Anne has great athletic ability, great quickness and she’s physically very strong,” Hochstadter said. “We’re working on a lot of serve and volley stuff. She’s learning to follow up on those great ground strokes and put some variation into her game.

“At 16, Anne’s game is more mature than Debbie’s was. Her volley is much better, she’s really an excellent volleyer. But she’s a little hesitant to come to the net. She needs to learn to just go and have the confidence she’ll be able to handle the volley.

“I’d have to say Debbie was more mentally tough, though. Anne has more trouble with concentration.”

When she does get her head into a match, Mall can be devastating. And she certainly doesn’t lack heart. In a quarterfinal match at the Seventeen tournament, Mall clawed back from a 0-5 deficit in the first set to win 11 consecutive games and the match.

“A lot of players would just take a snorkel at love-five and say, ‘OK, let’s see what happens in the next set,’ ” Hochstadter said. “But Anne hung in, got analytical and changed her game. She started to take the pace off and started keeping more balls in play. That’s when the momentum changed.

“Winning isn’t always pretty, but it’s winning. I think that shows her progress. She wasn’t hitting her best shots, she wasn’t playing her best tennis, but at least she was thinking.”

And that, Mall will admit, is a definite step in the right direction. Sure, she won the USTA National Indoor Hardcourt championships Nov. 25 and then beat two-time defending champion Keri Phebus, of Corona del Mar, for the Southern Section singles title a week later.

On the pro circuit, however, you have to play your best every match, every set, every game, every point. The quality of competition makes it a whole different ballgame.

“I’m going to have to become more consistent,” she said. “I have to work on staying with my game plan, too. My serve and my backhand are my strengths, I guess, so I have to work on my forehand and my net play. They’ve both been improving, but sometimes I react a little too late when going to the net.

“And I have to stay after my opponents. My intensity level kind of shifts sometimes.”

Hochstadter says Mall will learn to maintain her focus best by “just playing a ton of matches.” So she will play both junior and pro tournaments this year.

It looks as if it’s going to be a long, hot summer.