New Schedule Might Leave Tournaments With Empty Feeling

What if they held a tennis tournament and the best players didn’t show? Would the tournament have any prestige?

Probably not, and that’s what the Southern California Tennis Assn. is dealing with in the aftermath of last week’s Junior Sectionals. In the boys’ 18 singles division, the top seven players skipped the tournament--eventually won by top-seeded and eighth-ranked Ryan Heinburg of Agoura.

Why? It’s simple really. Because of the USTA’s new optimum schedule, all seven players had already qualified for the USTA National Clay Court and Hard Court championships. Under the old system, players could only qualify for the national events by competing in their section tournaments.

Now, they can qualify for nationals if they are ranked in the top 60 nationally, if they are endorsed by their section or if they finish in the top six at any of four national open tournaments. Players are endorsed if they are ranked among the top eight in their age division in Southern California. But Southern California often has more than eight players endorsed in each age division because a section is allowed one more endorsed player for each player it has ranked among the top 60 nationally.

John Lansville, manager of player development for the SCTA, said he was not surprised at last weekend’s no-show in the boys’ 18s.

“Players know they’re in nationals, so they don’t want to jeopardize their positions in the rankings,” Lansville said. “I don’t think a lot of players understand the new system yet. We’re scared that when they do understand it, this will start happening in all the other age divisions.”

Lansville is not alone in his disgust with the new schedule. In a recent meeting of the Southern California Junior Tennis Council, Lansville said all 25 members voiced their displeasure with the optimum schedule. When the optimum schedule was voted on last year, it passed by a 15-2 vote. Southern California and Florida were the only two sections to vote against it.

Eliot Teltscher is employed by the USTA as a Southern California regional coach, but he would have voted it down too.

“The USTA knows I’m not for the optimum schedule,” he said. “I don’t bleed USTA blue. For this section, it’s not a good rule. When you have this many top national players in this section, we need them to compete against each other.

“Before, they had to play sectionals before nationals. Now you just hope they play. It’s like we’re going to skip algebra and go right to geometry.”

Teltscher knows why the schedule is popular with many sections.

“It’s not a bad system for someone in Idaho who has no one else to play in their region,” Teltscher said. “But you’ve created a rule for a handful of people. I believe players develop sectionally, not nationally.”

Most tennis experts believe that Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Michael Chang would never have developed their skills without each other. Growing up, all three constantly faced each other in Southern California junior tournaments.

“We feel kids get better by playing one another, by getting the competition,” Lansville said. “If they’re all ducking tournaments, how are they going to get any better.”

So far, the ducking mentality has not slipped down into the boys’ 16 division, where Southern California has almost 30 of the nation’s top 120 players. Ron Yovan said his son Aaron could have protected his No. 6 SCTA ranking and defaulted his quarterfinal match with Camarillo’s Adrian Mardyks, a lower ranked player.

“He was hurt and he had nothing to gain, but you don’t want to give a kid that option,” Ron Yovan said. “It’s not a great lesson to teach someone.”

Yovan, seeded third, defeated Mardyks, 6-4, 6-1, and then defaulted with a back injury to second-seeded Doug Stewart of Malibu in the semifinals.

“All the competition is why our boys’ 16s are so good,” Lansville said. “If you know you could lose in the early rounds, you know you have to work a lot harder.”

Lansville said he is working to change the USTA’s way of thinking.

“We’d like to see the national rankings come out July 1 instead of May 1,” he said. “That way kids would still have to play sectionals [in late June] because they wouldn’t know whether their ranking was good enough for nationals.

“It would make for a better sectional championship. There still should be some prestige in winning the Southern California championship.”

SCTA OFFERS CLINICS

Beginning Monday, the SCTA will offer tennis instruction for children between the ages of 8 and 17 at seven sites throughout Orange County: Fountain Valley Tennis Center, Chapman Sports Complex in Garden Grove, Cabrillo Tennis Center, Neal Machander Tennis Center, Sandpointe Park, Santiago Park, Santa Ana Valley High. The six-week program will provide 18 hours of instruction for $10. Scholarships and tennis racquets are offered for those in economic need.