Inactivity Can’t Halt Progress by Yelsey

Corona del Mar freshman Anne Yelsey didn’t like quitting in the middle of a set, especially since she was playing one of the county’s best players, Newport Harbor sophomore Natalie Braverman. But Yelsey knows her body, and she didn’t like what it was telling her.

“My back was really aching, and it was building up every game,” said Yelsey, who retired trailing, 3-0.

No one can blame Yelsey for being cautious. After all, she missed eight months of competition because of a stress fracture in her lower back. Those eight months--from October 1998 to May of this year--might have been the most painful and boring period in Yelsey’s life, and her family’s.

“I annoyed everybody,” she said. “I had nothing to take my frustrations out on. My family was very happy to see me back playing again.”

Yelsey, who looks and plays a little like Mary Joe Fernandez, struggled in the first month of her comeback. But she hit her stride by late summer, finishing fifth in singles at the girls’ 14 national clay courts in Plantation, Fla., and at the national hard courts in College Park, Ga.

She has continued to play well during the high school season, winning 20 of 24 sets. Three of those victories have come against some of the better players in Southern California: Mater Dei’s Brittany Reitz, Woodbridge’s Susanna Lingman and Dana Hills’ Kate Romm.

Not bad for someone who has never played team tennis and doesn’t especially like the one-set format.

“You have the pressure on you,” Yelsey said. “You can get mentally tired and wear your body out much quicker.”

Which might be why Yelsey’s back starting acting up Wednesday in the Sea Kings’ 15-3 loss to top-ranked Newport Harbor.

Yelsey’s private coach, Phil Dent, came by the match to watch his pupil of two years, and he liked what he saw.

“She’s developing an all-around game,” said Dent, who spends much of his time coaching his son Taylor, a touring pro. “I think she understands what she has to do. I think she’s going to be a very good player, but her time is not now. She’s got to realize not everybody’s going to be a great player at 15.”

Yelsey said she is trying to be patient.

“I’d like to work on hitting the ball harder, but I realize that takes time,” she said. “I also want to be a serve-and-volley player, but I don’t think you can rush that.”

VAUGHAN AN AGGIE

Nadia Vaughan, Yelsey’s teammate, has committed to Texas A & M. A three-time Times’ all-county selection, Vaughan chose the Aggies over San Diego State and Kansas.

Vaughan said the choice was easy.

“The campus blew me away,” she said. “I fit right in. It’s so much like Newport Beach without being Newport Beach.”

Vaughan’s older sister, Nina, is playing tennis at Notre Dame. Nadia said Texas A & M Coach Claire Sessions told her she could play anywhere from No. 3 to No. 6 on the singles ladder.

Vaughan, who has been bothered by elbow tendinitis this fall, said she isn’t ready to become a full-fledged Aggie just yet.

“I don’t want to get that y’all going,” she said.

BRAVERMAN SAYS ALOHA

Braverman will represent the Western Region in the Pineapple Cup, a team tennis tournament Nov. 9-17 at the Kona Hilton on the Big Island of Hawaii. Greg Patton, former UC Irvine men’s coach and now U.S. Tennis Assn. coach, will lead the Western Region team against the Central, Southern and Eastern teams as well as teams from Hawaii, Mexico, Australia and Canada.

The teams consist of the top 14-year-old and top 16-year-old boy and girl from each region. Braverman, one of eight chosen to try out for the Western Region team, won a playoff at Stanford last month to earn her place. The format will include singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Sam Warburg of Sacramento (boys’ 16s), Diane Mathias of Gardena (girls’ 14s) and Justin Montgomery of Oxnard (boys’ 14s) will be Braverman’s teammates on the West team.

Braverman will miss three rounds of the Southern Section team playoffs. But she will be available for the section individual singles tournament, where she will be one of the favorites.

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If you have an item or idea for the girls’ tennis report, you can fax us at (714) 966-5663 or e-mail us atdave.mckibben@latimes.com