Change in Playing Style Turns Canyon High’s Lin Into a Winner : Tennis: Transition from baseliner to serve-and-volleyer proves successful.

It has been more than two years since Canyon High senior Eric Lin changed his approach to tennis. But every so often, Lin is reminded of his past by dazed opponents.

“At a junior tournament last year, a guy came up to me at the net after I beat him and said, ‘Man, I thought you were a baseliner with a two-handed backhand. I asked my friend about you and he said that’s the way you play,’ ” Lin said. “I get that a lot from people.”

If he had remained a baseline player, Lin said, “I’d still be ranked respectably.”

But would he have reached the semifinals of the Easter Bowl Tournament in Miami?

“I don’t think so,” said Lin, who will play tennis at UCLA next year.

Lin, who was seeded 16th in the Easter Bowl Tournament, lost Saturday in the semifinals to second-seeded Eric Taino 7-6 (8-6), 1-6, 7-6 (7-3).

Now, he can laugh about his transition from a two-handed to one-handed backhand and from a baseliner to a serve-and-volleyer. But at the time, Lin said he was not having much fun.

“I lost to a guy I’d never lost to,” Lin said. “I was a little frustrated. But my coach (Sam Olson) just told me to stay with it.

“The hardest thing about it was it was kind of like starting over again. You take some bad losses along the way.”

Canyon Coach Dave Hamel remembers one of those losses, one of only 10 Lin has experienced in 163 high school sets.

“Eric lost strictly because he was staying with his one-handed backhand,” Hamel said. “You could see he could have easily beaten the kid if he would have gone to two hands.”

Yido Lin, Eric’s father, taught his son the two-handed backhand, and about everything else he knows about tennis. Yido didn’t take up the game until he was 40, but somehow he learned enough fundamentals to give Eric a solid foundation.

“I started him playing when he was 5,” Yido said. “I just watched a lot of tennis and read some books.”

When Eric turned 15, Yido realized his son needed to elevate his game. So he put Olson, who runs a tennis academy at the Balboa Bay Club, in charge of Lin’s career.

“The serve and volley, I can’t coach,” Yido said. “It’s better this way. I play a lot more tennis myself now that I’m not worrying about Eric so much. Sam has done an excellent job with him.”

It was Olson’s idea to move Lin from the baseline to the net.

“I saw his body type,” Olson said. “He had such long arms and a good serve to start with, it seemed like he’d be a natural for the serve-and-volley game. At 5-11, Eric’s taller than most Chinese players and he has the arms of someone 6-3. He can cover a lot of net and he has a really good touch.”

Olson offered Lin the opportunity to delay his transformation until after the sectional tournaments. But Olson said Lin decided to begin the painful process immediately.

It wasn’t long after that Lin’s national and Southern California rankings began to fall. In the next year, Lin’s Southern California ranking dropped from 11 into the mid-20s and his national ranking dropped from 23 to 64.

Olson said Lin’s confidence sank with each loss.

“I remember him being really down and negative about himself,” Olson said. “He told me he hadn’t won a tournament since he was 14.”

Lin’s one-handed backhand was weak and he often was getting passed when he approached the net.

“I kind of had to go to the net, because my backhand was so bad that I had to disguise it any way I could,” Lin said. “I knew I couldn’t hang at the baseline with the good players.”

Olson said Lin’s resolution was impressive last year.

“The thing I like about Eric is he never looked back on it,” Olson said. “Most people would have just given up and gone back to the way they used to play. They just wouldn’t be willing to take the losses.”

But this fall, the losses began coming less frequently and Lin started defeating players he would have never beaten from the baseline. Lin beat Pepperdine’s Ari Nathan at the Arcadia tournament and then teamed with Glen Weiner of Cypress to win the National Indoors doubles title in the boys’ 18 division.

In the last two months, Lin has won the Fullerton and Long Beach junior tournaments and has reached the semifinals of the rain-delayed South Bay Tournament.

Hamel said he’s barely seen Lin all season.

“The better Eric gets the worse it is for us,” said Hamel, who has only had Lin available for one match this season. “I can’t hold it against him. He needs those tough matches to become a better player.”

And Lin has definitely become a better player, thanks to an aggressive serve-and-volley game.

“He just attacks, attacks, attacks,” Olson said. “It really surprises his opponents. Not too many juniors are used to that much pressure on every point.”

Olson’s said his point was proven at the Easter Bowl tournament.

“Of the four players that made the semifinals, all of them were net players,” he said. “It’s just so hard to win off the baseline. You just have to grind and grind for every point.”

So, as many of his peers have spent the last two years going through the daily grind, Lin has bypassed them by taking a frustrating, but worthwhile short cut.

And now, his peers are taking notice.

“They say I play like (Stefan) Edberg,” Lin said, laughing.

But Olson wasn’t laughing.

“I really believe he can go a long way,” Olson said. “He’s got a special gift for the net. He’s got the kind of game where he could do well out there on the pro circuit.”