This Battle of Sexes Benefits Both the Boys and the Girls

Johnnie Johnson has faced injury, long odds and insults from snickering skeptics who said he couldn’t win the big one.

Of course.

He played for the Rams.

Quite possibly that’s the ideal job preparation for his latest task--playing 35-year-old Zina Garrison in a battle-of-sexes match benefiting the Boys and Girls Clubs on April 17 at Sunny Hills Racquet Club in Fullerton. Yes, that Zina Garrison. As in Zina Garrison, Wimbledon finalist in 1990, once ranked as high as No. 4 in the world. The same Garrison who was playing a full tour schedule as recently as 1995 and earned more than $4.5 million in career prize money.

Johnson, the former All-Pro defensive back, is training hard and diligently under the guidance of two teaching pros, and the 42-year-old has issued brave promises of victory. “It’s a risk for me to pick up racket,” he said. “You could get totally embarrassed. When I look at my overall life and goals, tennis has become a major part of my life.”

He takes issue with a Las Vegas oddsmaker that favors Garrison 4-1. “That didn’t set too well with me,” he said. “At least in this match people have to wonder. How often do you have male vs. female? And you go to Vegas and the female is the favorite.”

Johnson joked that his old job did get him ready in one sense, saying: “A DB is on an island. You are by yourself.”

He has known Garrison for more than a decade and kept track of her progress. “She’s a humble person,” Johnson said. “Venus and Serena [Williams] can thank Lori McNeil and Zina. They built a foundation.

“I always tell her [Garrison] that in the Wimbledon final, when she went down, I went down too.”

The match is tentatively planned to be shown on ESPN on May 27.

So, there will be a battle of the sexes . . . while we’re waiting for the battle of the psyches--John McEnroe vs. Jeff Tarango.

THE HUNT FOR NO. 1

Lindsay Davenport was not sounding great last week on a conference call, but it had nothing to do with the end of her 17-week reign at No. 1. She has been suffering from a chest cold for a couple of weeks.

Martina Hingis reclaimed the top spot on Feb. 8 after losing the No. 1 ranking to Davenport in October.

“As soon as I got it, she was like, ‘I need it back. I want it back,’ ” said Davenport, who won’t be in the same tournament as Hingis until Indian Wells, Calif., next month.

“We would always joke in the locker room about it and have a real good time with it. Rankings are so funny. They mean different [things] to each player. To Pete Sampras, it’s been extremely important to be No. 1, especially at the end of the year. With Steffi [Graf], she always says it doesn’t mean that much. She’s happy playing and winning tournaments.

“For me, it’s not life or death. If I had my choice this year, if I could win Wimbledon or become No. 1, I would always choose to win Wimbledon or a Grand Slam. Saying that, being No. 2, I’m going to try extremely hard to get to No. 1.”

Hingis, the Australian Open champion, could widen her lead since she is playing this week in Paris and Davenport is taking a short break. Also appearing in Paris is Australian Open finalist Amelie Mauresmo. Last month, Hingis made controversial remarks about Mauresmo’s sexuality during the Open.

For her part, Davenport was pulled into the mess when she said she felt as if she was playing against a man, speaking only in the tennis sense. She apologized to Mauresmo and also wrote her a note.

“It was unfortunate that my remarks were taken out of context,” Davenport said. “I felt so bad for her. I would never want to put any player under that--along with Martina’s comments--my comments seemed way worse than they really [were] meant to be.

“I was completely talking about tennis. And everyone took it the other way, especially the Australian media. So I definitely learned my lesson. I’m probably not going to say too much about a player, for good or bad.

“Now I can understand [how] a lot of the players are little standoffish with the media. Because you just get burned.”

QUOTE, UNQUOTE

* ‘That was just something that just happened, just a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing, like being struck by lightning.”--Venus Williams on the bead incident at the Australian Open.

* “The whole boring thing--we’ve already seen that and heard that over the years. It almost makes me wish I was No. 51.”--Sampras, upset at his portrayal in ESPN’s “SportsCentury” Top 50 Athletes documentary. Sampras, ranked 48th, then opted not to appear in last week’s ESPYs in New York.