Gonzalez Talks, Plays a Good Game : Tennis: After leaving Paraguay to get away from the pressure, the Valencia High athlete is doing just fine in the U.S.

While her next victim patiently stands on Court 1, Jenny Gonzalez sits and chats with a reporter, not knowing that she is holding up her opponent and team competition.

The first set for Gonzalez, a junior at Valencia High, ended with a familiar result: 6-0, in less than 15 minutes over a bewildered La Quinta player.

In 30 sets, Gonzalez’s closest brush with defeat has been 6-2. In one set last week against Magnolia’s No. 1 player, Gonzalez did not drop a point. Tennis and conversation are coming easier to Gonzalez, a transfer student from Paraguay.

But it wasn’t that long ago that she struggled with both.

When Gonzalez came to California last summer, she was not only fleeing her native country but also tennis.

Intense pressure from the Paraguayan press, coaches and countrymen almost caused Gonzalez to quit the game she loved.

She went through five coaches. They honed Gonzalez’s clay court-style game, but also applied what Gonzalez said was too much pressure. The most famous was Victor Pecci, a former Davis Cup star from Paraguay who ran a tennis academy similar to Nick Bollettieri’s in Florida. The academy’s goal was to take South America’s top junior players and turn them into professionals.

Through much of her childhood, Gonzalez says she practiced tennis for five hours a day during the week.

“On the weekends, I didn’t want to see a racket,” she said. “My dad wanted me to play with him, but I was just burning out.”

When Gonzalez, 17, made a mistake in practice, her coaches often would make her run laps around the court as punishment. And when she lost a local tournament match, Gonzalez said she felt as if she was letting down her country.

“Winning tournaments wasn’t that big of a deal to me, but to them it was a big deal,” she said. “I started playing real tight because of all the expectations. (The tennis crowd) expected us to be the best in the world, but it wasn’t true. We weren’t the best in the world.”

Gonzalez, who goes by Jenny though her given name is Estella, said the constant media scrutiny didn’t help matters.

“Sometimes the papers would call my house late at night,” she said. “I’d try to be nice, but it was too much.”

Soccer is Paraguay’s most popular sport, but Gonzalez said her country was constantly looking for a national hero--even if it was a tennis player.

“They wanted me to be a professional, because they needed someone to represent the country,” she said. “I understand that, but the people envy us too much. You couldn’t do anything. People are watching you all the time and I don’t like that. I just want to be normal. I had to watch everything I did and watch who I was with.”

About two years ago, Gonzalez decided she had had enough.

“I thought about quitting,” she said. “I was just out of it.”

But before she left it, Gonzalez and her parents figured a change of scenery might be the best thing for her. So she moved to Placentia in the summer of 1992 to be with her aunt and uncle, whom she now calls her manager.

“The first thing I always wanted was to learn English,” Gonzalez said. “Then I knew I always wanted to play tennis (in the United States). All the good players came from here and I knew there were more tournaments. In Paraguay, any time I wanted to play tournaments against good competition, I had to travel to a new country and that cost money.”

Valencia Coach Mike McCall was happy to have Gonzalez, even if he couldn’t communicate with her.

“She didn’t speak a word of English when she showed up,” McCall said. “We spoke Spanish the first few weeks and my Spanish is passable at best. We did a lot of pointing and illustrating and showing, but not much talking.”

So for a few months, Gonzales had to grudgingly give up her gift of gab.

“I like to talk a lot and I couldn’t talk to anyone,” Gonzalez said. “So I’d go to church and pray. I’d talk to God, because he’s the only one who understands me. And I’d pray a lot to have a lot of friends.”

Gonzalez quickly found one in Sandra Cardona, a fellow South American who moved here three years ago from Colombia. Cardona didn’t speak much English, but after taking English as a second language, both were amazingly fluent in a short time.

And now, in barely more than a year, Gonzalez has everything--friends, a command of English and a relaxed tennis game.

“Now I’m having fun when I play and my friends come to watch me,” she said.

McCall said making friends hasn’t been a problem for Gonzalez.

“Her transition here has been a lot smoother than I thought, but she’s hard not to like,” he said. “She’s such a neat kid and she sets such a good example. She works her tail off. I don’t think she has to make a special effort. Everybody just loves her.”

If Gonzalez keeps winning matches, college coaches will start loving her, too.

This past summer, Gonzalez won six Southern California tournaments to be ranked 11th in the girls’ 18 division of the Southern California Tennis Assn. In the Santa Ana junior tournament, Gonzalez upset Sandra DeSilva of Pasadena Poly High, the No. 1-ranked girls’ 18 player in Southern California.

But Gonzalez has yet to play anyone like DeSilva in her high school matches. The Tigers are 8-2 overall, 2-0 in league.

“Sometimes she’s not getting much of a workout, so it’s a challenge to keep her focused and to keep her improving,” McCall said.

Gonzalez’s challenge now is to transform her style from a baseline player to an all-court player.

“I like the hardcourts a lot better than the clay, but I have to change my game,” she said. “I still play topspin and it seems like I break my strings every other day. I know I can win from the baseline. But with a very good player. I have to go to the net.”

Gonzalez will probably have to spend some time at the net later this month at the U.S. Tennis Assn. National Indoor tournament in Oklahoma. Fortunately for Gonzalez, the tournament will be indoors.

“I hate cold,” she said. “I like hot. My country’s hot. If I don’t see that I’m sweating hard, I’m working for nothing. I want to feel like I did something.”

Gonzalez would like to continue sweating in the United States, but a lot depends on her father’s wishes.

“My dad wants me back, but he said I can stay here if I want,” she said.

Gonzalez said her father is also willing to pay for her tuition at the Bollettieri Academy.

But Gonzalez didn’t seem too excited about that idea.

“I don’t know if I want to do that,” she said. “I told him I’m fine now. That academy sounds too much like the tennis in my country.”