It’s 6-Love, 6-Love and They’re 85, 83

The “ball girls” are in their 70s. The players are in their 80s. And the chair umpire, pushing 90, has been known to snooze during a match. But it’s brutally serious business on center court of the Los Angeles Tennis Club as they near the finals of the women’s 80-and-over hard court championship of the United States.

The competitors in the semifinal Thursday could hardly have been more different: On one side of the net was the regal Madame Liu Shang-Ku Tao, 83, once the top tennis player in China and now part of the ruling elite of Taiwan. On the other side was Eleese Thornton, 85, a 112-pound woman who once worked as a housemaid and who learned her game on the public courts of Los Angeles.

In the umpire’s chair, as usual, was dapper Syd Nieman, who in years past officiated at Forest Hills and in the Davis Cup, and is now getting ready to celebrate his 90th birthday in December. “The man in the chair, quite frankly, falls asleep once in a while,” confided tournament organizer Corky Murdock, a 70-and-over player. “But he’s reliable and he’s faithful. And when he’s put to the test, he still does a fine job. I guess you could call him a legend.”

Madame Tao, who trains by running for half an hour each day, was favored to take home the coveted gold tennis ball awarded to national champions by the U.S. Tennis Assn., and readily accepted her No. 1 seeding. “She cannot beat me,” Tao said of Thornton.

But her opponent was not conceding. “Playing the Madame, I could luck out,” Thornton said as they took the court in midday heat.

National championship or not, 80-and-over singles tournaments do not draw large fields. Only five women entered the event at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, an elegant facility off Melrose Avenue that dates to the glory days of Hollywood.

The 5-foot-2 Thornton had breezed to a first-round victory Wednesday, but attributed the outcome to her 86-year-old opponent: “The young lady, she couldn’t run.” Thursday’s match would be different, she knew, because “the Madame, she runs fast.”

Thornton is a popular figure in such tournaments, in which many players are former professionals or quite wealthy. Raised in Kansas City, she attended college for two years but, with the prejudices of the time, had to do domestic work when she moved to Los Angeles in 1928. “I wouldn’t stay in no one’s kitchen,” she declared, and eventually became a school clerk.

She took up tennis in her mid-30s and soon was competing in American Tennis Assn. tournaments, a circuit for black players before Althea Gibson broke the sport’s color barrier in the 1950s.

Thornton has won about 300 trophies, including one gold ball--for the 1983 national doubles title in the 70-and-over class.

That was the year “Madame Tao” took the senior circuit by storm.

Raised in mainland China, she was the top player there in 1934 and was elected to the National Assembly three years later. When the Communists took over, she fled to Taiwan with her husband, now 85. Both have served in the national Parliament ever since.

In 1982, she began living half the year in San Francisco. Why? “Good for the senior tennis,” she said.

She won the national 70-and-over title the next two years. This is her first year in the 80s.

Though barely 5 feet tall and weighing 98 pounds, on Thursday she strode about with a bold forward lean, putting her weight behind forehands crisply directed to far corners.

After five minutes of warm-ups, Nieman called out: “Players! Ready to play?”

A great-great-grandfather, he has been an umpire 62 years. Although he doesn’t recall ever falling asleep on the job, he admits feeling his age once in a while. Once was at a match between Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg, when the temperature reached 107 degrees. “I was dizzy and woozy,” he said.

Although Connors won the first point, “I said, ‘15-love Borg,’ ” he recalled. “I had no concentration. Connors said, ‘Come on, Syd, you know who I am!’ ”

On Thursday, there was an umbrella over the umpire’s chair to give him shade, and he never got woozy--or missed a call.

The “ball girls” were a special feature of the 80-year-old matches, designed to keep the competitors from wearing themselves out retrieving balls. They were recruited from participants in a 70-and-up championship also being held at the club. “Actually, we don’t call them ‘ball girls,’ ” Murdock said. “It’s ‘ball kids.’ ”

The first points were closely contested. Athletic marvels, both players roamed from one end of the baseline to the other. But Thornton’s looping “moonballs” quickly were no match for the low, faster groundstrokes of her opponent. “Game Madame Tao!” Nieman shouted from the chair.

By the third game, Tao was in complete control. She won the first set 6-0.

Thornton dug in and almost won the opening game of the next set. But Tao hit the net on a crucial point and the ball trickled over.

As the score reached 5-0, a frustrated Thornton put her hands on her hips, then gently tossed her racket in the air.

She hit a forehand winner that drew applause from a sprinkling of spectators. But it was her last hurrah. Moments later, Tao sent a backhand down the line and they were trotting to the net to shake hands. Tao had won a place in this morning’s finals.

“She’s just too good,” Thornton said as the octogenarians walked from the court. Then the 85-year-old muttered to herself: “I’m playing too much doubles.”