TENNIS / JEFF FLETCHER : Bayani, 9, Will Have a Forum in Which to Display Her Talents

Bernadette Bayani has never played tennis in front of 5,000 people. Not yet, anyway.

Bayani, a 9-year-old from Simi Valley, has been selected to play an exhibition match in the Forum before the John McEnroe-Andre Agassi exhibition Sept. 18. The top-ranked player in the girls’ 10-and-under division in Southern California, Bayani will face third-ranked Jessica Roland, 10, of Los Angeles.

Bayani is excited, and she said she is not bothered that 10,000 eyes will be on her every forehand.

“She doesn’t really know what she’s going into,” her father, Nestor, said.

Bayani knows the players on the pro tennis scene, and she hopes to meet Agassi or McEnroe. But her favorite player is Jennifer Capriati.

Why?

“She’s pretty good,” Bayani said.

So is Bayani.

She has won four tournaments this year, finished second in two others and lost in the semifinals of another. She has faced Roland many times in the past two years, including three matches this year. Bayani lost two of the three, but she won the big one--the Southern California Juniors sectional championship in June.

“I’m impressed with (Bayani),” said Steve Katz, who coaches Roland along with his wife, Maurisa. “She’s a good little player. She doesn’t make a lot of mistakes out there. For her size, she moves well. . . . She and Jessica have had a lot of good matches.”

Bayani and Roland will play at 7 p.m., but their match will be stopped in time for the McEnroe-Agassi match that is scheduled to begin at 8.

Adult League sectionals: Tug’s Topspins, a men’s 3.5 team from the San Fernando Valley, would have won the Southern California Adult League Tennis sectional championship Sunday had it not been so good.

Specifically, if Bob Mullins of Pacoima had not been so good.

After the Topspins apparently had defeated a team from South El Monte, 3-2, the team was notified that officials suspected that Mullins was better than his 3.5 rating.

After a hearing, Mullins was disqualified and his victory forfeited, reversing the score to a 3-2 loss.

Mullins and team captain Tug Craig of Chatsworth were upset because they initially thought that the decision to disqualify Mullins was made Saturday and the team was not informed until Sunday.

But Theris Brown, coordinator for National Tennis Rating Program activities in Southern California, said Mullins and Craig misunderstood the system. For a player to be disqualified, Brown said, he first must be flagged by one of the nine verifiers at the tournament. Mullins was flagged Saturday.

After a player is flagged, each of three national verifiers is required to watch him play a certain number of games. After a check into the player’s record, a hearing is conducted. Only after those steps are taken can a player be disqualified.

Players cannot be informed that they have been flagged because they might play poorly on purpose in front of the verifiers to avoid disqualification.

“They haven’t come up with a better method (for disqualification) yet,” Brown said, “but they keep trying.”

Add Adult League sectionals: Clarfield’s Clouters, a women’s 4.5 team consisting primarily of area players, won the sectional championship Sunday with a 3-2 victory over a team from Claremont.

The team, named after its captain, Tina Clarfield, earned a berth in the nationals Oct. 22-25 in Tucson, Ariz. But that is nothing new for these players.

Seven members of the team have been to the nationals before.

Myrna Craig of Chatsworth, Clarfield of Encino, who missed the sectionals because she was on vacation in Canada, Lily Reeves of Reseda and Dorrine Goldberg of Beverly Hills went to the nationals as part of a 4.0 team in 1990.

Caryl Schrier of Tarzana, Joan Saltzman of Encino and Roz Loveland of Marina del Rey played on a 4.5 team that went to the nationals last year.

The Clouters include Phyliss Adler of Toluca Lake, who is nationally ranked in 65-and-older singles. The doubles team of Dottie Edwards of Woodland Hills and Cecilia Gold of Agoura is ranked among 40-and-older doubles teams.

“I think, basically, all the girls on our team are tournament tough,” Craig said. “We had a lot of tough competition in the Valley (in qualifying for the sectionals) and that’s what toughened us up. After we played two or three matches, we all kind of had a feeling that if we played well, we could go pretty far.”

In the women’s open class, Linda Glassel of Sherman Oaks qualified for the nationals with the Westside Returning Retirees, who beat a team from Huntington Beach, 2-1.

The Tulsa Street Terminators, a men’s 4.5 team based in Chatsworth, lost in the championship match, 3-2, to a team from Fountain Valley.

USTA training centers: Within the next week, a panel of area coaches and pros will select 24 Valley tennis players--including four alternates--ages 11 to 14, to participate in an elite training program sponsored by the U.S. Tennis Assn. The program, created four years ago, was intended to help train the hoped-for next generation of world-class tennis players, Kevin Lyons of the USTA player-development program said.

“We’re looking for players who are serious about improving their tennis,” he said.

The players will meet at Warner Center Club in Woodland Hills for 50 hours of instruction, provided by local pros. The sessions are spread over eight months, starting the weekend of Sept. 19-20. Lyons said the pros do not concentrate on technique but on such areas as mental toughness, diet and match strategies.

Gar Glenny Cup: Three Ventura County teams will participate in this weekend’s Gar Glenny Cup, which matches six junior teams from Southern California against six from Northern California.

Emerging from a field of about 800 Southern California teams to reach the finals are girls’ 15-and-under and 12-and-under teams from Oxnard Tennis Center, plus a boys’ 12-and-under team from Cabrillo Racquet Club.

The finals will start at noon Saturday and at 9 a.m. Sunday at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA.

Ventura County championships: Darren Potkey, 17, of Ventura defeated Steve Tallakson of Ojai, 6-2, 6-3, Sunday at Pierpont Racquet Club to win the men’s open title in the Ventura County championships.

Potkey, who won the singles title last year as well, also teamed with Brian Griffin to win the doubles title.

Gale Lipton of Oxnard won the women’s open championship, beating Erin Corlett of Santa Barbara, 6-0, 6-0.