Varvais Makes Room For a Grand Tradition

Superstition will lead some athletes to eat the same foods every day until they lose. Some refuse to step on white lines for fear of bad luck.

Nick Varvais always stays in the same motel room--with his grandmother.

For the past four years, the Simi Valley tennis player has reserved Room 104 at the La Quinta Inn in Costa Mesa, three miles from the Southern California Junior Sectional tournament in Fountain Valley.

The sectional is the most-important tournament of the year for local juniors, and Varvais is never without Janet Varvais, his grandmother. Until this year, Janet Varvais attended all of Nick’s matches. But after the 1994 sectional, she moved from Simi Valley to Nikiski, Alaska.

This week she’s back, trekking more than 2,000 miles south, and has checked into Room 104.

“I would like to come back every year,” Janet said. “It’s good luck, hopefully.”

Nick says Grandma and Room 104 represent routine and tradition more than superstition. Otherwise he would have made a change. He has lost in the first round here two of the past four years.

But this year Varvais, 15, has advanced to the quarterfinals of the 18-and-under singles division. Thursday he defeated Ryan Hollis of Orange, 6-3, 7-5.

Today, good fortune might become necessity. Seventh-seeded Varvais will face Geoff Abrams of Newport Beach, who ousted No. 3 Kelly Gullett of Whittier, 7-6, 4-6, 7-5. Abrams is unseeded, but in 1994 he was a member of the U.S. Junior National team.