Esmero Doing a Balancing Act

USC freshman Melissa Esmero had just blown a 5-2 lead to lose the first set in the first round of the Pac-10 women’s tennis invitational at the Ojai Valley tennis tournament. Now she was trying to regain her focus against a streaky opponent, California’s Sekita Grant.

So why was she staring at the “No. 1” on the back fence of her court at Villanova Prep School?

“I took a little break, I started breathing and I just focused on that number,” said Esmero, a two-time Times’ Orange County player of the year from Mater Dei. “It came quickly and then it passed. I just have to be prepared for it.”

The “it” is vertigo, and ever since the season began, Esmero has had to prepare for her dizzy spells much as she prepares her racket to hit the ball. At times, the spells come and go in five or 10 seconds. But sometimes, her world is turned so upside down that the nausea and lightheadedness keep coming back like an annoying baseline player who retrieves every ball.

But Esmero, a left-handed counterpuncher, has handled every bout of vertigo about as well as she handled opponents. On Thursday, she beat Grant and Arizona’s Perrine Pine. Friday, she defeated Gray, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3, improving her singles record to 21-9.

Said USC Coach Richard Gallien: “She’s done a good job for a healthy person, much less someone who’s gone through what she has.”

For nearly two months, no one really knew what Esmero was going through, including Gallien and Esmero’s parents. Though she was nearly fainting in class and nauseous on the court, she didn’t tell anybody.

“I thought maybe it was the food I was eating at school or that I wasn’t getting enough sleep because of all the studying,” she said.

But while warming up for a doubles match against Pepperdine in early February, Esmero began to lose control. “The ground shifted and it was like the world turned upside down,” she said.

Somehow, Esmero and partner Anita Loyola won their match and Esmero won her singles match, giving USC the margin for their 4-3 victory. But in between her doubles and singles matches, Esmero became ill. The next day, she was diagnosed with vertigo.

Esmero was stunned. She didn’t know what vertigo was or how she got it. “They said it’s often caused by head trauma, but that didn’t happen with me,” she said.

After seeing a therapist once a week and doing exercises that are designed to retrain her brain, Esmero has been having fewer and fewer spells of dizziness. But since the weather has turned hot the last three or four days, some of her symptoms have returned.

Initially, she said, the vertigo symptoms scared her. Now, she is matter-of-fact about them.

“If I decide to play, I have to deal with it,” she said. “I’m now joking about it.”