Breakthrough Came When Jelso Learned How to Laugh : Racquetball: Ventura player now exudes a light-hearted confidence that he feels will take him to the pinnacle of his sport.

Asked where he stands among the best racquetball players in the country--amateur and pro--Tony Jelso figures he’s no better than 20th.

But Jelso dares to say the rankings will dramatically change. With a few swift and powerful swings of his stringed instrument, Jelso said, he will advance 19 positions.

Jelso, of Ventura, currently ranks eighth on the American Amateur Racquetball Assn.’s list, with a chance to climb higher at the upcoming Olympic Festival in San Antonio, Tex.

Call him confident. Call him brash. But when Jelso, 23, says he’ll be No. 1 he’s not talking about the amateur circuit. He’s talking about the International Racquetball Tour. The pros.

“And knowing I can be,” he said, “is very inspiring.”

Inspiration is something Jelso has never lacked when it comes to racquetball. What has been lacking for this man of bold predictions is confidence.

In the past, Jelso has stood on the threshold of greatness. These days, he says only one player gives him trouble. Only one player prevents him from stepping across the threshold:

Tony Jelso.

“It’s a fine line between being in the top eight and being the best,” said Bill Sell, 33, a 1992 national amateur doubles champion and Jelso’s occasional doubles partner. “Tony just needs a little more experience.”

Mike Bronfeld of Sacramento, ranked No. 2 by the AARA, agrees with Sell, saying Jelso could be close to a breakthrough.

“He’s got the ability to beat anybody,” Bronfeld said. “He hits the ball super hard and doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. It’s just a matter of getting his confidence.”

“He can be a force,” said Sell, “both on the amateur and professional tour.”

Players such as John Ellis, the top amateur in the United States, stand in the way. Ellis eliminated Jelso, 15-12, 15-11, in the quarterfinals of the AARA’s national singles championships in Houston last month on his way to the title.

“Ellis has an unbelievable serve--it’s been clocked at 185 m.p.h.,” Bronfeld, 26, said. “So you could be up five, six points, but that’s nothing.”

Said Jelso: “He didn’t beat me; I beat myself. I was up, 12-7, in the first game and 11-7 in the second. I was in control of both games. I was relaxed and had a game plan. Then I started thinking.”

Jelso paused and sighed while explaining how the national singles championship possibly slipped through his fingers. He can re-create that burst of anxiety that arrived on the threshold of a title. All he has to do is think about winning, about match points, about pressure.

“I got tentative, nervous,” Jelso said, again talking about the Ellis match. “Instead of thinking of the now, I started thinking ahead.”

So lately, Jelso has become obsessed with the man he sees each day in the mirror--his greatest asset and his most dogged foe.

Before he returned to competition June 11--the first time since the nationals--Jelso had picked up a clue to his psyche that could turn his fortunes at the Olympic Festival, July 21-28, when he will get another crack at the seven amateurs who fared better in Houston.

The clue was laughter--which had been missing lately. It was laughter that drew him to the courts as a child when winning wasn’t important.

“I like to joke around all the time, even when I’m playing,” he said. “Today I’m having fun. I’m enjoying it. And from what I’ve found--no matter who I play--if I’m having fun and I’m positive, I win.”

Jelso made that statement hours after he demolished Mike Margot, 15-2, 15-1, in the first round of the Summer Sizzler, a recently concluded open tournament held at Racquetball World in Canoga Park.

Jelso was laughing--and dominating.

His victory in the final, worth $500, also was a laugher: 15-1, 15-5 over Adam Karp of Huntington Beach.

“I think (the humor) screws up my opponents,” he said. “They’re thinking, ‘What’s this guy doing?’

“I’ve had people take my joking the wrong way. But what works for me is having fun.”

At the same time, Jelso’s commitment to the sport could hardly be understated. Not only has he been playing the game since age 6 (he was ranked in the nation’s top 10 several times as a junior), he and his fiancee, Wendy Bruce, moved to Ventura to take jobs at Ventura’s Pierpont Racquet Club. They left their native Albuquerque so he could also be exposed to stronger competition in California tournaments.

When he is not teaching at the club, he is lifting weights or running sprints or running up and down the stairs of a 12-story building in Ventura.

At 6-foot-3, 195 pounds, Jelso is tall and big for racquetball, a sport where quickness and finesse are often greater assets than size and power. But Jelso’s profile also includes those attributes.

“I think it’s an advantage being big and quick,” said Jelso, who says most of his opponents are in the 5-10, 175-pound range. “You don’t have to cover as much of the court. And it’s a little intimidating playing someone a lot bigger than you.”

Occasionally, he is asked why he didn’t pursue the mainstream sports--baseball, basketball, football. As a youngster, Jelso had played all three but dropped each by the time he reached high school.

“I always had a ball in my hand when I was a kid,” he said. “I played squash, and people told me I had a future as a squash player. But I didn’t love squash. My love was racquetball.

“I love the speed, the competition, the people. More than anything else, I enjoyed going to tournaments to see friends. I didn’t care about winning.

“I never had the killer instinct.”

It was a disturbing trend that resurfaced on the pro circuit in 1991, when Jelso played seven tournaments as an amateur.

He would push his opponents to the limit. Then he would lose.

“I had played a lot of top pros and I had given them great matches--five-game tiebreakers,” he said.

The topper came in a Texas pro-am event that year. Ahead, 2-1, in games against Drew Kachtik, the No. 1-ranked pro at the time, Jelso pushed it to match point in the third game and couldn’t put Kachtik away. Kachtik won the match.

A breakthrough came in March, when Jelso defeated Ruben Gonzales, a former national champion who was ranked fifth at the time.

“This time I really stayed focused,” he said. “That was one of those times when I got into that zone where I had high energy but I was relaxed, and everything was in slow motion.”

The big victory confirmed once and for all Jelso’s belief that he can be No. 1. Now he has made a promise to himself to get there.

“Being so close keeps me going,” he said. “I can almost see the top.”

So now Jelso is learning the negative aspects of thinking about the past in matches and the positive aspects of staying in the present. There are new techniques to learn--like creative visualization, which he hopes will prevent any self-sabotages in San Antonio.

Speaking of visions, for several years there has been a recurring image in Jelso’s mind.

Said Jelso: “It’s just picturing myself as the best.”