Illness Left Phebus Dizzy, Disoriented . . . and Upset : Tennis: Festival’s top seed loses first-round match, then gets treated for dehydration at UCLA Medical Center.

Keri Phebus knew she should not have been out of bed Saturday morning, let alone spending 2 hours and 45 minutes chasing tennis balls.

So Phebus, a senior at Corona del Mar High School this fall, was one of the few people who wasn’t surprised when she was upset in the first round of the U.S. Olympic Festival women’s singles competition.

Phebus, the festival’s top-seeded player and defending singles and mixed doubles champion, has been sidelined for a month with a virus and kidney infection.

As a result, she wasn’t at full strength Saturday when she lost to unseeded Meredith Chiles of Germantown, Tenn., 6-7 (6-8), 6-1, 6-4, at UCLA’s Sunset Canyon courts.

“I woke up Saturday morning and I was tired and weak,” Phebus said. “I knew it was going to be tough to get through the day.”

It was.

The day started with Phebus rallying from a 5-0 deficit to win the first set.

The afternoon ended with her riding in an ambulance to the UCLA Medical Center, where she was treated for dehydration. Doctors gave her three liters of fluids intravenously before releasing her.

“After the match, I was sitting there and I was very dizzy,” she said. “I passed out three times. I was very disoriented and I didn’t know my name. That was when they called the ambulance.”

Phebus returned to her home in Newport Beach. She forfeited her losers’ bracket match Sunday to the South’s Jenny Baker of Mentor, Ohio.

Festival tennis trainer Jim Desrosiers, who treated Phebus after the match, said she “was very, very weak.”

“She hadn’t fully recuperated from the virus,” he said, “and that was coupled with a three-set match in the sun.”

Desrosiers said the temperature during Phebus’ 11 a.m. match was between 85 and 90 degrees. Phebus said he gave her ice, a banana and water in hopes of keeping her from dehydrating.

Phebus, 17, said she caught the virus while playing at the French Open junior tournament in May. She later developed a kidney infection and a rash from an allergic reaction to her medication.

“It was awful,” she said.

Phebus had planned to skip the Festival to play at Wimbledon’s junior tournament.

But when the illness canceled her trip to England, she accepted a late Festival invitation. She was a last-minute replacement for North teammate Allison Grace of Paradise Valley, Ariz., who is playing in doubles only because of a sore back.

“I had just started practicing again,” Phebus said, “and I was feeling pretty good. I had fun at the Festival last year, and thought I would give it a try.”

The Festival was Phebus’ first competitive match since the French Open.

Chiles won the first five games of the match. But Phebus fought off six set points, then won six consecutive games.

Phebus then won the tiebreaker to take the first set.

“I have every respect for Keri’s game,” Chiles said Sunday. “I feel good for myself, but I also feel bad for her. She played very well.”

The heat began taking its toll on Phebus in the second set. She won only five games.

“She was working hard out there but you could tell she wasn’t 100%,” Desrosiers said. “We kept making her drink a lot of water between games to keep from dehydrating, but she pushed herself too far.”

Phebus agreed.

“The second set went by so fast that I thought about defaulting,” she said. “Then I figured I might as well go ahead and play.”

Phebus said she plans to rest a few more days before she starts training for the 18-and-under junior nationals at San Jose in early August.

“This turned out to be a real bummer because it put me in a hole again,” she said.

The Festival defeat was the second time in a year Phebus has been upset.

After going undefeated and winning the Southern Section title as a sophomore, Phebus was surprised by Dana Hills’ Anne Mall in the semifinals of the 1990 section tournament.

“This hasn’t been my year,” Phebus said. “You can definitely say that.”