TENNIS / BILL DWYRE : The Hall of Famers Come Out to Honor Ellsworth Vines

They held a quiet little party for Ellsworth Vines in the desert last week, and the guest list read like a Who’s Who of Tennis.

There to honor Vines were Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzalez, Pancho Segura, Gene Mako, Charlie Pasarell, Ray Moore and Fred Perry. Others who sent messages because they couldn’t be there included Tom Gorman, Bob Falkenburg, Rod Laver, Tony Trabert and John Newcombe. That group represents 40 Grand Slam singles titles.

It was like a baseball party with DiMaggio, Mantle, Mays, Williams, Koufax, Musial and Aaron.

Vines is 80 years old and undergoes kidney dialysis treatment three days a week. But he still gets out a lot and even manages to whack a few balls off the mats at the driving range at La Quinta Golf and Tennis Resort, where he lives and where the tribute was held for him.

The morning gathering was held overlooking the center court at La Quinta, previously named for Vines, and the specific reason for the festivities was the opening of a display of memorabilia from Vines’ career, which included U.S. Open titles in 1931 and ’32 and a Wimbledon title in ’32. Many of the photos of Vines that are part of the display at La Quinta were gathered and donated by tennis historian Gordon Sabine of Santa Monica, and the display and event was the idea of Jackie Cooper, tennis director at La Quinta.

One of the highlights of the display was a genuine Ellsworth Vines autograph model tennis racket, vintage 1930s, still strung. Original price: $7.50.

Of course, there was also Vines’ Wimbledon trophy, barely a foot high.

“You know, it’s kind of funny how different tennis is now,” Vines said in his short speech to the gathered group. “I turn on the television and I see Jim Courier win a tournament and get $175,000, and I think to myself that I’d sure like some of that money. But I have my Wimbledon trophy, it’s all mine, and I’m proud of it.”

A special guest was Perry, who won the men’s singles at Wimbledon in 1936--the last Englishman to do so--and also led the British to their last Davis Cup title, also in 1936. He is 83, but looked as if he could still go five sets.

“I do go back a long ways,” he said, during his tribute to Vines. “In fact, it has been said that, when I was around, the Dead Sea wasn’t even sick.”

The presence of Pasarell was a reminder of what he has done in about 10 years to make tennis in the Palm Springs a constant presence for about two months of each winter season.

Pasarell’s various promotions/tournaments seem to begin about the time the last golfer has crossed the city limits at the end of the Bob Hope Classic and last until the end of his Newsweek Champions Cup, usually the first weekend in March.

“We don’t want the concept to be just a local or Southern California thing,” Pasarell said. “We want people from all over the country, all over the world, to know that they can come here for most of February and early March, have their vacations and see some of the best tennis in the world.”

In addition to some collegiate-level tournaments already held, the real tennis crunch starts in the desert with a women’s pro tour stop the week of Feb. 23, an overlapping men’s seniors event Feb. 28-March 2 and his ATP Tour championship-level event March 1-8.

All of this is held in the stadium Pasarell built at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells. And while the men’s event is established--with defending champion and new No. 1 player in the world Courier playing, along with Michael Stich, Guy Forget, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, David Wheaton, Michael Chang and Jimmy Connors--the women’s and seniors events are attractive, too.

The women’s event will be the first WTA tour stop to carry the name of recently retired Chris Evert. It will be called the Matrix Essentials Evert Cup, and the beauty products label will probably get lost in the glamour and identification qualities of the Evert name. This one sounds as if it will quickly become the Evert Cup.

The forerunner to this women’s tournament was also held at this time last year in the desert, but it was not a Pasarell production, not held at Grand Champions and not overwhelmingly successful.

The seniors event may be even more intriguing. It will mark the first time the ATP, governing body of men’s tennis, has sanctioned a seniors tournament. There have been other such senior events for years, but no specific tour or official sanction. Rather, each was a kind of occasional shot in the dark by an individual promoter.

This seniors event will be the first of 10 such undertakings by the ATP, and the featured figure in Pasarell’s kickoff tournament will be Bjorn Borg. Others expected to play are Laver, Fred Stolle, Roy Emerson, Cliff Drysdale, Bob Lutz, Stan Smith and Ilie Nastase.

The field will total 16 players, and most of the $100,000 purse will go to the doubles winners. But $24,000 of it will be for winners of two “shootout” singles tournament, with the eight youngest and eight oldest in the field competing in separate brackets on Sunday and Monday, March 1 and 2. The matches will consist of tiebreakers only (best of three tiebreakers in the final) and the entire competition in each division will last no more than two hours.

Speaking of Borg, one can’t help but wonder if the real reason he is playing in the Grand Champions Seniors event is to put himself right on the scene of a regular ATP event, where it would appear to be quite easy to request a wild card into that main draw.

How about a Borg-Connors first-rounder? Think what that might do to a Tuesday afternoon gate.

Tennis Notes

In conjunction with a women’s tournament in Hilton Head, S.C., March 30-April 5 called the Family Circle Magazine Cup, the sponsors will give an award to “The Player Who Makes a Difference.” It is geared to honor those tour players who have given greatly of themselves to charity, and the nominees include Chris Evert, Pam Shriver, Martina Navratilova, Zina Garrison and Monica Seles. The first four are well known for their charitable efforts. But Seles? A publicity release states that “while not one to publicize her good deeds . . . “ Seles has “spent an entire afternoon at Texas Children’s Hospital . . . “ and once made “an unscheduled and unpublicized stop at a clinic for underprivileged youth . . . “ Guy Forget hit the most aces on the ATP tour last year, with 611 . . . Jennifer Capriati, who will turn 16 March 29, won $535,617 last year . . . The Jim Courier/Stefan Edberg fight for the No. 1 ranking probably will reach a peak at the Lipton Tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla., the week of March 13. Both players will be there, and the only other time both will be competing at the same time and place before that will be next week at Stuttgart, Germany. Courier will take a week off after Stuttgart, then defend his title at Indian Wells. Edberg will take two weeks off before the Lipton . . . According to ATP records, Courier is the 10th player to be ranked No. 1 since the rankings were placed in the hands of a computer in 1973. Ivan Lendl has been No. 1 for the longest span in period, 270 weeks, followed by Jimmy Connors, 268 weeks.