Tullberg Feeling at Home on Tennis Courts in Ojai

It is doubtful that Julie Tullberg will be able to re-create the past--she’ll show just a flash of it here and there.

But Ojai will love her anyway.

Tullberg, whose thundering ground strokes turned heads from here to Charleston, W.Va., eight years ago when she was half of the top 16-year-old doubles team in the country, always will be royalty here.

Even if she’s not the player she used to be.

“I haven’t been playing competitively this past year because I’ve been teaching,” she said. “It’ll be tough. So I want to have a good time, which might be a better approach.

“Sometimes you play better with that approach.”

Tullberg, a graduate of Nordhoff High, is one of only seven Ojai residents to win a championship at the Ojai Valley tournament in the past 68 years. The event, which started in 1896, opened Thursday with 700 singles matches. There are 1,600 competitors.

Tullberg, 24, has won three Ojai doubles titles--her first came in the 14-and-under division. A once-powerful baseline player, she became an All-American at San Diego State.

Last year at Ojai, she reached the quarterfinals in both women’s open singles and doubles competition. She has entered the same events and should be competitive again in this, her 15th consecutive Ojai tournament, a streak she started at 10.

“It’s great here,” she said. “I feel like it’s my tournament.”

She opened Thursday with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Katja Czoske, a native of Germany who lives in Santa Monica.

But Tullberg finds herself in uncharted waters. Her game is rusty. She spent the past year teaching at the Ojai Valley Inn, a private club. Her students are vacationers who are novices or play only for recreation. She also works with children.

“I know some of the kids I teach are going to come out to watch me,” said Tullberg, who once had college recruiters flocking to watch her play at Libbey Park, the tournament’s main venue. “Every once in a while somebody good shows up at the club and I get a good match. But that’s not very often.”

Tullberg won back-to-back doubles championships at Ojai in 1986 and ’87. In ‘86, she and Lucinda Gurney defeated Debbie and Pam Ridgely, 6-1, 6-1, in the national final in Charleston. They also won the national hard court title in San Jose that year. In ‘87, Tullberg and Dorey Brandt beat Kristen Bailey and Tricia Simpson, 6-3, 6-1.

Gurney, who lived in Rolling Hills, and Tullberg were ranked No. 1 by the United States Tennis Assn., but they split up when the older Tullberg had to move up an age group. Gurney moved to North Carolina, where she played for the University of North Carolina.

Tullberg and Brandt were ranked No. 2 in Southern California and were in the top 10 nationally. They wanted to play together in college and enrolled at San Diego State.

The duo reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament as freshmen in 1988 and were named All-American, but Tullberg hasn’t achieved those heights again.

A foot injury that required surgery sidelined her for a season. Then a disagreement with Aztec Coach Carol Plunkett led her to transfer to USC, where Tullberg bounced from No. 1 to No. 4 singles and No. 1 to No. 2 doubles.

“I finished out decent, but I never got it back after my freshman year,” she said. “Being out that long at that level--it’s hard to get it back.”

Tullberg wanted to stay in tennis after college, but she never expected to be back in Ojai. She planned to come home for a year, then move on.

“I thought I’d go to a bigger place,” she said. “I think it’s a good start. I don’t know if I want to teach forever, but I want to stay in tennis as a director or a sporting-goods representative or something along those lines.”

Tullberg still has the burning desire to win tournaments, however. She said she practically begged Brandt, now a schoolteacher in Brea, to return to Ojai with her.

“I tried to get her up here,” Tullberg said. “I wanted her to come so bad. . . .”

Instead, Tullberg is teaming with fellow Ojai resident Julie Downs in today’s opening round of doubles. Her second round-opponent in singles today is USC-bound Pam Trump of Arcadia.