TENNIS / OPPORTUNITY TOURNAMENT : Mall Showing Potential, Not Results

Anne Mall is not yet old enough to go bar-hopping in her bar-filled San Diego neighborhood of Pacific Beach. But Mall, who grew up in Dana Point, is beginning to feel old in a sport where players turn professional before they turn 15 and they’re called veterans at 25.

“People are always telling me that I’m not living up to my potential,” Mall said Thursday afternoon after losing to UC Santa Barbara senior Jean Okada, 6-3, 6-1, in the second round of the Toshiba Opportunity Tennis Tournament, a pre-qualifier for next month’s Toshiba Tennis Classic in La Costa.

Skip Strode, Okada’s coach, said he saw loads of potential in Mall, but very little drive.

“She’s pretty talented,” said Strode, who played on the men’s pro tour for nine years. “But if I was her coach, I wouldn’t have her playing that way.”

Mall played Thursday’s match, at center court of Rancho San Clemente Tennis and Fitness Club, like she was the unknown college player instead of the former national girls’ 18 champion who has been ranked as high as 134th in the world. She missed easy volleys badly, over-hit her ground strokes and served erratically. Within 50 minutes, the top-seeded Mall was on her way back to Pacific Beach.

“I must have made 60 unforced errors,” Mall said. “These courts are pretty fast and I could not time the ball. When I did hit the ball, I was late and I had nothing on the ball. I basically gave her the match. This is one of the worst matches I’ve had since I’ve come back.”

And just where has she been? Nowhere she’d like to revisit, that’s for sure.

Since graduating from Dana Hills High three years ago, Mall has spent far more time on the disabled list than the active list. In her only season of college tennis at UCLA, she played only a couple matches because of a stress fracture in her foot. During the last 12 months on the Women’s Tennis Assn. tour, she has played fewer than 10 matches and lost most of them.

First, Mall suffered from a sore right rotator cuff that she kept re-injuring nearly every time she took the court. That finally healed with the help of her physical therapist Mark Hershberger, but in March she burned her wrist so badly while cooking that she needed a skin graft from her leg.

“I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ever going to be healthy enough to get back on any kind of a roll,” Mall said.

So with Mall lately, there’s potential and then there’s potential disaster. Fortunately, she has managed to keep her sanity through most of it and she’s continuing to work on her goal of reaching the top 50 in the world. Mall, who began the year ranked 171 but has fallen to 283, has been working on her goal with her coach, Ed Ward, who helped San Diego’s Ginger Helgeson become a top-50 player.

“I didn’t have a game for the pros out of high school, but Ed told me he could make me into a good pro player in five years,” said Mall, who lost to Steffi Graf in the first round of the U.S. Open last year, 6-2, 6-1. “So I gave it a shot. I’ve changed everything in my game and it’s taken me a lot longer to work this stuff in with all the injuries.”

After watching Mall for the first time, Strode suggested that Mall get more of an attitude on the court.

“For being 5 foot 10, I don’t think she’s physical enough,” Strode said. “You can’t be big and put out less effort than your opponent. It looks like she expects to win out there. If I was coaching her, I’d have her play like Lindsay Davenport and have her hit the ball hard and make people fear her.”

Mall, who will play another Toshiba pre-qualifier in Tijuana next week, said she’s simply trying not to fear herself.

“I’ve started to channel everything in the right direction, but it’s not going to happen in two months,” Mall said. “It’s been 2 1/2 years since I turned pro, I’m going to give it 2 1/2 more. What I want to do is reach my potential. I know I can be a good tennis player.”

Tennis Notes

In other second round matches, second-seeded Danielle Scott of Newport Beach advanced to today’s quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Yoshika Shumita of San Diego and third-seeded Keri Phebus of Newport Beach defeated Torrey Pratt of San Diego, 6-1, 6-0.