Grass-Roots Youth Tennis Program Spawns Elite Dreams : Tournament: Youngsters in After School Tennis program get a taste of La Costa.

In a setting that belied their words, a few coaches, promoters and local tennis officials talked about bringing their sport down to a grass-roots level on Wednesday.

The impromptu discussion was being held at the posh La Costa Resort and Spa, where at $60 an hour, court time is anything but dirt cheap.

They were there for the Mazda Junior Tennis Classic, a tournament backed by a corporate sponsor and promoted by one of the biggest public relations firms on the West Coast. All that, and there wasn’t an elite player in sight.

But that was the point. And maybe it was appropriate that the inaugural tournament was held in 1992, a year in which it has become trendy to talk about breaking up the corporate elite, the political elite and even the mythical, cultural elite.

The San Diego Tennis Patrons are trying to destroy the image of the tennis elite, and that’s why they brought their tournament to La Costa--to let someone else gloat about victory on center court.

The one gloating most noticeably was Leo Docuyanan, 12, of Paradise Valley. He and his 40-Lovers teammates--Ana Docuyanan, 15; Alvin Ruzo, 13; and Cheryll Ruzo, 10--held their first-place trophies aloft after coming back in the last two matches to defeat the Navy Brats, 14-13, in the championship round of the single-elimination, team-tennis style tournament.

Leo got to play on the same court that Jennifer Capriati and Gabriela Sabatini will occupy next month during the Mazda Tennis Classic despite getting involved in tennis less than a year ago.

“My dad (Larry) didn’t want me to get out into the neighborhood,” Leo said of why he took up the game. “A lot of kids get into gangs there. My dad wanted me to get into sports.”

And because of the After School Tennis program begun by the Tennis Patrons, getting into this particular sport was easy.

“Traditionally tennis has been associated with country clubs,” said Kathy Willette of the Tennis Patrons, one of the organizers who put together the tournament on three weeks notice. “It hasn’t been available to every kid in the neighborhood. And in this day and age with both mom and dad working, it’s hard for a kid to get to a tennis facility where he can learn the game.”

For $15 a month, the After School Tennis program offers lessons twice a week by a professional coach. If a family can’t come up with the $15, the Tennis Patrons will provide a scholarship. They’ll also provide racquets for those who can’t afford them. More than 2,000 youths--30% of whom are on scholarship--take advantage of the program at 70 different sites throughout the county.

Most of the lessons are given on school campuses around the county “so the kids can walk out of class and the courts are right there,” Willette said.

The 64 players in the Junior Tennis Classic emerged from the After School program.

Before Monday, all Leo knew of La Costa was what he saw of it in an advertisement on the back of a tennis yearbook.

“It just said, ‘Come play on our grass tennis courts,’ ” Leo said.

Being a novice, Leo thought the opportunity to place himself in that picture on the back of his magazine was a long way off--just like his goal of using the sport to gain a college scholarship. But he dreamed about it, and this week he lived it.

Sort of. The tournament was held on the cement courts.

“But when I was done, the first thing I did was run up to the grass courts with a friend,” Leo said. “We only had five minutes before they chased us off, but we got to play a couple points. We pretended like it was Wimbledon. He was Arthur Ashe and I was Michael Stich.

“Then we sneaked onto the clay courts and pretended like we were Jim Courier and Andre Agassi, sliding around on the clay in the French Open. We got kicked off there, too.”

Fees to use those courts are $60 an hour, and some of Leo’s teammates were teasing him that he owed the resort $120. He said it would be worth it.

“There’s not many places you can find grass courts,” he said.