Party Pooper

Rick Leach may be a bit shy, but he certainly is not retiring. Not this year, at least.

Leach is a 36-year-old grizzled veteran of the men’s professional tennis wars. He is a doubles specialist, winner of close to $4 million since he ventured out on the tour in 1987, fresh from a career at USC in which he became the first men’s player to be an All-American in both singles and doubles for four years.

He has been a fixture, a familiar face who has remained while a couple of generations of young, brainless bangers, caps turned backward, have come and gone. His well-placed, medium-paced serve and deftly struck lefty volley have left fan and foe alike scratching their heads in wonder. In a game where power plays bigger every year, Leach and his McEnroe-like soft hands are still out there, hitting them where they ain’t and smiling all the way to the bank.

“I guess you could say my volley paid for my house,” Leach said.

And not just an ordinary house, but a beachside beauty in Emerald Bay at Laguna Beach, where he lives with his wife, Christi, and daughter, Paulina, 7.

Leach has been slowly retiring for the last four or five years. The grind of the tour keeps sending him signals. He spends more time with ice now than a guy climbing Everest. Without him, the medical ice-pack industry would be looking like Intel.

So the year 2000, his 14th on the tour, was to be his last. Clearly. No questions asked. End of deal. It’s been nice, see you later. Leach told everybody exactly that.

So, the ATP Tour, which is very thoughtful along these lines, and Charlie Pasarell, Ray Moore and Steve Simon, the trio that runs the Tennis Masters Series event in Indian Wells this week, decided the time was right to pay tribute to the tour’s doubles elders. It planned a goodbye reception for Mark Woodforde, Patrick Galbraith and Leach, and printed invitations listing Woodforde’s 67 doubles titles, Galbraith’s 36 and Leach’s 40. Three veterans, 143 titles. Certainly cause for a party.

The invitations went out, the party is tonight.

And Leach isn’t retiring.

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he said. “I told them, but the invitations had already gone out.”

Leach had one of his best years in 2000, relaxing with the knowledge that, after December, he was Roberto Duran. No mas.

His 2000 started with an unexpected bang. He teamed with Ellis Ferreira of South Africa to win the Australian Open, his fifth men’s doubles Grand Slam event title to go with his two previous Australian titles in 1988-89 with Jim Pugh, his Wimbledon title in ‘90, also with Pugh, and his U.S. Open title in ‘93, with Ken Flach.

He didn’t expect to win another Grand Slam event, nor did anybody else on the tour expect him to.

“I was in a locker room someplace last year,” Leach recalled, “and I overheard somebody trying out a trivia question on one of the younger players. The question was, ‘Which current player has won Grand Slam doubles titles in three decades?’ And the answer was me.

“Then, I hear the kid say, ‘Geez, I thought he retired 15 years ago.’ ”

A quick series of events led to Leach’s change of heart.

First, he got a phone call from Ferreira a week before this year’s Australian Open, pleading with him to reconsider and go to Australia to defend their title.

“He was at LAX, calling from the Red Carpet room, just before getting on his flight to Australia,” Leach said. “The partner he had lined up had gotten hurt and he wanted me back. And I might have said yes, but that afternoon I sprained my ankle playing basketball, so I had a good out.”

A little more than a month later, he was offered a chance to play in the San Jose tournament and, with partner Neville Godwin of South Africa, won a first-round match against highly ranked German Tommy Haas and his partner.

“That really got my adrenaline going,” Leach said. “I forgot how good it feels to win, especially when you aren’t supposed to.”

But he was still a retiring guy until he received a phone call from Simon, calling on behalf of tournament director Pasarell.

“I’ve known him since he was just a little kid,” Simon said, “and we thought it would be a great way for him to end it, to play at a home tournament. We told him, any way he wanted, wild-card entry or whatever, we’d find a spot for him.”

Leach accepted eagerly and will play this week with Don Johnson of Chapel Hill, N.C. Simon’s call also prompted Leach to begin talking to his wife about how good he felt, about how he missed the tour and, upon second thought, how he really wasn’t quite ready to end it now. She had never understood why he was stopping now, anyway, so the decision to go back out there was unanimous.

“I’m going to go to Miami next week, then play the French and Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and right through the summer,” Leach said.

He finished ranked No. 2 in the world in doubles last year, so his entry into events on his terms is fairly well assured. The only complication is that, starting last September, he began a job as assistant tennis coach at USC. He probably will be able to work around his schedule a bit, since he knows the boss. Trojan Coach Dick Leach is his father.

“It’s actually working out OK,” Leach said. “If I win a couple of rounds in Indian Wells, I’ll have to get back Thursday for a USC home match. Then, I can go to Miami because we have eight days without a college match.”

So, tonight will be goodbye for Galbraith, a former UCLA star, and Woodforde, an Australian who has lived here on and off for most of his career and who, with Todd Woodbridge, became the “Woodies” of tennis lore.

And it will be welcome back for Leach, who can look back on 14 years on tour and point with pride to his record of at least one title in each of them.

So don’t be surprised if there is a party here next year. Same time. Same place. Same stated occasion.

The guest of honor will come dressed in support hose and ice packs, shake hands with everybody and then leave for his first-round match.