Veteran Players Find Going Rough in Slims Qualifying

Kathy May-Paben and Marita Redondo Nicoll were two of the nation’s top junior tennis players in the early 1970s and both earned top 10 rankings as professionals.

But May-Paben quit the tour in 1980 and Redondo Nicoll did the same a year later. Each cited burnout as the reason.

May-Paben and Redondo Nicoll, both 35, were given wild-card berths into the qualifying tournament for this week’s $350,000 Virginia Slims of Los Angeles. However, both lost their matches on Saturday at the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach.

Nathalie Herreman of France defeated May-Paben, 6-3, 6-4, and Redondo Nicoll was eliminated by England’s Joanne Moore, 6-2, 6-3.

“I didn’t feel like I played very well,” May-Paben said. “I made a lot of unforced errors. I feel like I need to play a ton of matches and get match tough. I’m not playing the big points the way I should be. My concentration isn’t there all the time.”

Herreman, 132nd in the Virginia Slims rankings and seeded fourth among the qualifiers, won four of the final five games in the first set. The players exchanged service breaks in the third and fourth games of the second set, then remained on serve until Herreman scored a break in the ninth game and held serve in the 10th to close out the match.

“I concentrated on putting the ball in the middle of the court with a lot of topspin because she didn’t like topspin at all,” Herreman said. “I bothered her very much with my topspin forehand.”

Said May-Paben: “They’re hitting a lot more topspin now. You don’t see people (today) playing like I play, hitting the ball flat.”

May-Paben quit tennis after the 1980 U.S. Open and got married in 1981. The Pacific Palisades resident is the mother of two boys, Christopher, 8, and Kyle, 6. She had been playing a lot of paddle tennis, until a shoulder injury and subsequent reconstructive surgery two years ago.

“I realized then I really wanted to play tennis again,” May-Paben said. “I realized that I may never be able to play again and how lucky I had been to play.”

Because of a reluctance to be away from her children, May-Paben usually restricts her play to local tournaments. But earlier this year, she played doubles in the Virginia Slims of Palm Springs and Lipton International at Key Biscayne, Fla., losing in the first round both times. Last year, she defeated Alexia Dechaume in the Virginia Slims of Albuquerque before being eliminated by Anne Minter in the quarterfinals.

“I like to compete,” said May-Paben, whose sister Alysia will play Isabelle Demongeot in a first-round main-draw match. “It’s frustrating, because playing one tournament every three months isn’t going to do it. I have to make a decision about how much I want to put into it.

“I hate to be away from my children. They’re a very big part of my life. They’re in school and I can’t take them with me. Otherwise I would.”

May-Paben also encountered questions about her dedication when she was a full-time player.

“Everybody used to tell me if I worked harder when I was playing that I would have been able to be better, but I didn’t want to work harder,” she said. “I was satisfied with the way that I did.”

May-Paben’s highest ranking was eighth. She won the U.S. Clay Court Championship in 1976 and had victories over Wimbledon champions Martina Navratilova and Virginia Wade. She does not regret her decision to quit.

“I didn’t enjoy it anymore so I knew it was time to stop,” May-Paben said. “The life on the circuit was never enjoyable for me. It was very lonely. The thing that kept me going was the competitiveness, because I loved to compete.

“I found toward the end that I’d walk on the court and didn’t really care if I won or lost. I knew then that if I wasn’t giving 100%, that it was time to stop.”

Redondo Nicoll, a mother of three including eight-month-old Gannon, has been teaching tennis in the San Diego area for most of the past decade.

“It was just fun going in,” said Redondo Nicoll, who left the tour after the 1981 U.S. Open. “I saw Peanut Louie-Harper at the Mazda tournament in La Costa, and she encouraged me to try for a wild card here. I though I’d try for it and see what happened, never thinking I would get it, but they called me Monday.

“I’m pretty content with what I’m doing now. This was just a fun chance to see what the girls are playing like now. They’re getting stronger and stronger. Everybody’s slugging. As soon I came, I saw a lot of the older players and they said, ‘Just be ready, they’re going to slug. If you can throw a drop shot, you’ll be OK.’ ”

Notes

Six of the eight seeds moved into today’s second round of qualifying. The only losers were No. 3 Sandrine Testud of France, who was upset by Mana Endo, 6-1, 5-7, 6-3, and No. 6 Renata Baranski, who lost to Claudine Toleafoa, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. Top-seeded Kimiko Date of Japan advanced with a 6-0, 6-4, win over Nathalie Guerree of France.

Play today begins at 10 a.m., with eight players earning spots in the main draw. . . . Cammy MacGregor, a 1987 Palos Verdes High graduate, was eliminated by Jessica Emmons, a former UCLA standout, 6-2, 6-3.

The day’s final match was the longest as Pilar Vasquez of Key Biscayne, Fla. needed 3 hours, 54 minutes to defeat Japan’s Tamaka Takagi, 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (7-3), 7-6 (8-6).