TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : Garrison Is a Big Winner Off the Court

In the last two years, Zina Garrison-Jackson has won just one tournament, but she is still a big winner off the court.

Through the Zina Garrison Foundation, which raises money for the homeless and for inner-city children and her involvement in Kid Care, a meals-on-wheels program that feeds as many as 300 children a day in her native Houston, it’s clear that her best performances are not coming on the tennis court.

“I just have a natural love for kids,” said Garrison-Jackson, 29. “There are a lot of kids wh are not as lucky as my nieces and nephews.”

Garrison-Jackson went on a couple of delivery runs in the Kid Care program and knew immediately that it was all worthwhile.

“Just to see those kids walk up and hand them a meal and see them smile, it’s incredible,” she said. “Food is something we take for granted. The majority of us have it all the time, but we should never forget that some of us don’t.”

Her goodwill is well documented. She was the first Family Circle Magazine’s Player Who Makes A Difference award last year and donated $20,000 to begin a tennis academy to give free lessons to underprivileged in Houston. Garrison-Jackson’s next plan is to begin a homeless shelter in Houston.

“One of the problems is low self-esteem,” she said. “We’d like to rebuild it. Just because you’re in a bad situation doesn’t mean you are a bad person.”

Garrison-Jackson, who plays TeamTennis for the Newport Beach Dukes, is also entered in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Aug. 9-15 at Manhattan Country Club. She hopes her matches will serve as adequate preparation for the U.S. Open.

“Since Monica is not around, there’s a lot more hope for us all because she was so dominating,” she said. “I still believe I have a chance. Women’s tennis is so up in the air, anything can happen. I just got lazy and burned out. I had been doing (tennis) since I was 12.

“So I hope for the best at the Open . . . and hope I don’t draw the No. 1 player in the first round.”

*

Money matters: The U.S. Open has won the race to $9 million in prize money. The first Grand Slam to reach that mark, the U.S. Open will award a record total of $9.02 million, including $535,000 to the winners of the men’s and women’s singles competition.

*

Agassi update: As the Nick Bollettieri Era fades away, Andre Agassi’s deal to work with Pancho Segura as coach runs through the U.S. Open. After that, they will take stock of each other and decide whehter to continue. In the meantime, Bollettieri has his hands on another prodigy at his academy in Florida--12-year-old Anna Kournikova from Moscow.

* Look out below: John McEnroe has fallen out of the top 100 in rankings for the first time since June, 1977. He is No. 144. Agassi has dropped to No. 21, the first time he hasn’t been in the top 20 since February, 1988.

* Mary Pierce, Mary Pierce: Here’s the latest on the 18-year-old who lives in Florida but calls herself French because her mother is French. Pierce has severed her tennis relationship with her controversial father, Jim Pierce, who has served as her coach.

After Jim Pierce was reportedly stabbed and maced by her bodyguard outside her hotel room in Latina, Italy, two weeks ago, she pulled out of the next tournament, citing strain. Jim Pierce has been barred from attending any women’s tennis events because officials fear he will disrupt Mary’s matches.

Mary withdrew from last week’s French Federation Cup team, which she joined as part of her agreement with the French Tennis Federation for support and coaching, and instead entered the Pathmark Classic, an exhibition tournament in Mahwah, N.J. Pierce received an appearance fee. She also had two bodyguards.

Pierce considered withdrawing from a tournament next week in Vermont, but she is still in at last count. Last week, Pierce said her father would not coach her again, then entered the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles.

*

Lisa Lisa: Lisa Raymond was the most dominant player in college tennis--she lost one set, just 23 games and was 34-0 at the University of Florida on the way to the NCAA singles title. Her matches lasted an average of 54 minutes, which became known around campus in Gainesville as the “Lisa Raymond Tanning Hour.”

At 19, Raymond isn’t at the same level in the pros as she was in college, but give her a little time. She turned pro after winning the NCAA title, lost to Jennifer Capriati in the fourth round at Wimbledon and is getting ready to play the U.S. Open for the first time as a professional.

“Everything is going pretty fast for me,” said Raymond, from Wayne, Pa., who took two weeks off after the NCAA tournament. “Then, boom, I was off to London.”

After that, she played exhibitions in Tokyo and Osaka and Mahwah, N.J., then has tournaments scheduled in Statton Mountain, Vt., and at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles. For a young pro, it’s a pretty hectic schedule.

“I’m adjusting,” she said.

A righthander with an aggressive baseline game who models herself after Steffi Graf, Raymond is No. 50 figures she will be in the top 10 in the next couple of years. She might be there already if she hadn’t gone to college, but Raymond said she wouldn’t trade anything for her two years at Florida.

“For me, it was definitely the best decision because I just wasn’t ready before,” she said. “Certainly, emotionally I wasn’t ready to play pro tennis as a 17-year-old. College allowed me to grow up.”

*

Cancer benefit: Chris Evert, Gary Shandling and Sharon Stone will take part in “An Evening At The Net,” to benefit the Revlon/UCLA Women’s Cancer Research Program Aug. 2 on the first night of the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament.

Shandling and Celine Dion will perform and there also will be a celebrity doubles match featuring Evert, Andre Agassi and Dustin Hoffman and announced by Stone.

Pete Sampras, Michael Stich, Michael Chang and Richard Krajicek are the top players in the field for the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament, Aug. 2-8 at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA.

* BJ and EJ: Billie Jean King and Elton John are teaming together in a fund-raiser to benefit John’s AIDS foundation. A tennis match under the World TeamTennis format will be played Sept. 22 at the Forum, featuring Martina Navratilova, Evert, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Roy Emerson, Tracy Austin, King and John.

Tennis notes: Wimbledon doubles champions Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge have entered the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament. The victory at Wimbledon was Woodbridge’s 20th doubles titles in succession, breaking John McEnroe’s record of 19. Woodforde and Woodbridge are ranked as the No. 1 doubles team on the IBM/ATP Tour . . . Anyone who donates a racket Aug. 3 at the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament will be admitted free at 11 a.m. The rackets will be given to children in the USTA’s school program and the national junior tennis league . . . Barry Friedman, 38, the pro at Via Verde Country Club in San Dimas, won three medals at the recently completed Maccabiah Games in Israel. Freidman and 36-year-old brother Mark Friedman, won the gold in the 35-40 age group doubles. Barry and his partner won a gold in mixed doubles, defeating Mark and his partner in the final. Barry also won a bronze in singles. Larry Belinsky of Rancho Santa Fe took silver in the same event . . . Gabriela Sabatini, who pulled out of an exhibition tournament last week in Mahwah, N.J., because of shoulder tendinitis, has been advised by her doctors to not play for at least two more weeks. That may jeopardize Sabatini’s appearance in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, which begins Aug. 9. Last week, Sabatini was in Buenos Aires, receiving treatment for the injury, according to Mahwah tournament director John Korff . . . 1959 Wimbledon champion Alex Olmedo is top-seeded in 55-year-old age group in the USTA National Men’s 50 and 55 age group hard court championships to be played July 26-Aug. 1 at Lindborg Racquet Club in Huntington Beach . . . Last week’s Ed Edelman Youth Tennis Clinic helped kick off the Amateur Athletic Federation’s youth program this summer at 119 public tennis facilities. The program continues until Aug. 14. For information, call the Southern California Tennis Assn., at 310 208-3838 or the Amateur Athletic Foundation at 213 730-9620 . . . Kelly Wong, 31, of Monterey Park has been selected to receive the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s 1993 Personal Achievement Award for MDA’s Los Angeles Chapter. Wong is one of the nation’s top wheelchair tennis players.