COLLEGE TENNIS : Leach Duplicates Older Brother’s Feat

Jon Leach on Sunday became only the second player in the 12-year history of the Adidas Invitational tennis tournament to win both singles and double championships in the same year.

And it came as no surprise to the USC senior to learn that the first was his older brother, Rick, a former Trojan All-American who accomplished the feat in 1985.

“He’s won so many tournaments,” Leach said of his brother, a doubles specialist who helped the United States win Davis Cups in 1990 and 1992, “that basically, every tournament I win, he’s already won.”

Leach duplicated one of the most noteworthy of his brother’s undergraduate accomplishments by defeating Arizona sophomore Jan Anderson in the singles final, 6-3, 6-3, and combining with Wayne Black to defeat USC assistant Matt Anger and teaching pro Sean Brawley in the doubles final, 6-3, 6-3.

Black, a USC junior, was the defending singles champion and was seeded No. 2 this year, but he lost to the unseeded Anderson, a left-hander from Hamar, Norway, in the quarterfinals.

Anderson, who played at Nebraska as a freshman, started fast against Leach, breaking his eighth-seeded opponent’s serve in the second game to open a 2-0 lead on the clubhouse court at Hyatt Grand Champions.

But Leach held serve the rest of the way in gaining a wild-card entry into the Newsweek Champions Cup Feb. 28-March 6 at Grand Champions.

Whereas Black was content to slug it out with Anderson, who rarely strays from the baseline, Leach frustrated Anderson by bringing him to the net to retrieve a succession of drop shots.

“He played his best match, and he had to,” said his father, USC Coach Dick Leach. “I just can’t wait until his brother finds out he won this. Rick’s going to be really proud of him.”

On the whole, Jon Leach has not been able to duplicate the individual accomplishments of his brother, the only four-time All-American in both singles and doubles in NCAA Division I history.

Jon, though, helped USC win national championships in 1991 and 1993, something his brother never did. His play in the Adidas Invitational, which included professionals and top-ranked juniors as well as college players, will do wonders for his self-esteem, his father suggested.

“This might give him confidence for the rest of the year,” Dick Leach said. “He’s just getting better and better and better.”

Better than his brother?

“He beats Ricky more times than he loses to him,” Dick Leach said. “Ricky gets so frustrated, saying ‘Why don’t you play like this in the tournaments and maybe you’d beat some of the college players.’ ”

On Sunday, Anderson knew Rick Leach’s frustration.

“He played a great match,” Anderson said. “I haven’t seen him play much better than that.”

Until the final, Anderson was the surprise of the tournament.

“He’s still an unknown quantity to me,” said Arizona Coach Bill Wright, who recruited Anderson last summer without having seen him play after learning that Anderson had been released from his scholarship by Nebraska and wanted to transfer. “I knew he had to be pretty good. I didn’t know he was this good. He’s got a lot of potential.”

Wright wasn’t discouraged by what he saw Sunday.

“He (Leach) played just too great,” Wright said.