Tennis Courtship Led to a Perfect Match : Thanks to Mom, Kristin Heinberg, 11, Found a Coach and a Dad on Her Way to a Junior-Player Ranking

Five years ago, Diane Heinberg looked for a tennis coach for her 6-year-old daughter and was referred to a man who gave lessons at his house. The coach told her he wasn’t taking new students, but Diane persisted. She “called and called and called,” the coach recalls, until he finally said yes. Or actually, “I do.”

The coach wound up marrying Diane. Aside from assuming a fatherly role with her two children, Kristin, now 11, and Ryan, 8, Craig Heinberg also became their coach. And the children, moving into his Agoura house with the tennis court and weight machines, have developed into top juniors in California. Earlier this month, Kristin won the women’s division at the Mammoth Open.

“The one hassle we have,” Craig says, tongue slightly in cheek, “is when Diane tries to get the kids court time on our own court.”

Had Kristin played with Barbie dolls instead of tennis rackets, Diane and Craig never would have met, and Kristin probably would still be tormenting her mother by banging tennis balls off the garage door. Certainly, her tennis skills have benefited incalculably from her environment.

“She’s got the most perfect situation in the world,” Craig says. “She’s got all my students to hit with, all the equipment, and a park next to the house where she can run. If she’d gone to one of those tennis camps, she’d be lost in the shuffle.”

Kristin, who plays under the surname of Hamilton-Heinberg, is ranked No. 8 in girls’ 14s in California. Always precocious, she was beating 10-year-olds when she was 7. In Mammoth, she beat Jennifer Slattery, who is ranked No. 1 in the women’s open division in Southern California.

“I had no idea she’d be this good,” says Craig, who plans to enter Kristin in the girls’ 16s nationals next year in San Diego.

At 5-foot-4, 100 pounds, Kristin is big for her age, but she doesn’t try to overpower opponents. “She’s adaptable and plays off other people’s games,” Craig says, adding that as a coach he likes her because “she’s a hard worker and has a great feel. Her strength is her ability to keep the ball in play.” Diane says her daughter “doesn’t miss.”

With a ponytail and shy smile that hides braces, Kristin doesn’t have the intensity of a Monica Seles. Her cool court demeanor is a lot like that of Chris Evert, who Kristin remembers watching on TV as a tot.

“When we see Krissy play, we never know if she’s winning or losing,” Diane says. “We call her ‘The Ice Woman.’ ”

While Craig didn’t see the potential in Kristin when he first began coaching her in 1986, Diane knew differently. “I knew she was going to be good,” Diane says. Divorced from an Australian, Diane was raising her children alone when Kristin began showing an unusual interest in tennis. Lessons seemed appropriate.

One day, “Kristin was playing in a court next to Stacey Jellen,” Diane says, referring to one of the area’s leading juniors, “and Stacey’s mother Louise said to me: ‘You’ve got to get to Craig Heinberg.’ ”

Craig was a teaching pro at Calabasas Tennis Club for 10 years and has made his mark as a private coach--among his current students are several top-ranked juniors, including Mei Len Tu, No. 2-ranked in girls’ 16s in Southern California. It took Diane two months to get him to take Kristin. She had to be persuasive. Very persuasive. “She was real pushy,” Craig says, winking at Diane.

It’s a little unclear when Diane and Craig, both 41, started dating. “He and the children got along wonderfully and he asked us all out,” Diane recalls. But Craig says, “I thought you asked me out?”

Craig likes to tease Diane about their relationship. The joke, of course, is that marrying him was cheaper than hiring him. “She got a bargain in lessons,” Craig says. “I figure I lose $17,000 a year working with my own kids.”

Craig’s relationship with the children, Diane says, is warm and loving. “We’re all so incredibly close,” she says.

Craig runs with the kids in the morning. “They’re always ahead of me,” Craig says. “I try to explain that that’s not how it’s done. I always ran behind my father. But they don’t listen to me.”

Kristin, who will be a seventh-grader at St. Mel’s School in Woodland Hills, trains about three hours a day. Nobody yet is calling her another Jennifer Capriati, the next tennis wunderkind , but she does dream of appearing on TV, like her idol, Chris Evert. “Hopefully,” she says, blushing, before going out and hitting a few hundred practice volleys.