Just Getting in the Swing Is a Victory

When the four doubles players were ready to take the court, she was introduced first. When she walked out, she smiled a lot.

All of that was as it should be.

Opening day at the Acura Classic at La Costa Resort and Spa wasn’t the usual uneventful Monday on the Women’s Tennis Assn. circuit. This Monday was Corina Morariu day.

For the casual follower, there are familiar elements to this story. An athlete, in the prime of her life and the height of her career, is stricken with a life-threatening disease, beats it and embarks on the comeback trail.

That’s the quick version. It doesn’t come close to capturing the months in a hospital, battling a form of leukemia that doctors estimate is curable about 60% of the time, leaving that dreaded 40% hanging over your head. It doesn’t describe the chemotherapy that left her so weak for so long that she couldn’t hold a tennis racket, much less swing it. Nor does it take time to elaborate on having her brother shave her head because the clumps of hair that were falling out from the chemo were getting all over the bed.

“He left a little spiky thing at the front, thinking that that was pretty funny,” Morariu said recently. “We took pictures and made the most of the situation.”

Nor does the quick version of this story capture the outpouring of affection that came Morariu’s way from fellow competitors.

Just weeks after Morariu was diagnosed and hospitalized in early May 2001, Jennifer Capriati won the French Open and dedicated the win to Morariu, holding up a sign to tell the world. Lindsay Davenport wore a necklace with a “C” on it at Wimbledon. Lisa Raymond and Renee Stubbs, the No. 1 doubles team in the world, kept sending her gifts in the hospital. And Kimberly Po, the tour veteran from Rolling Hills, got on a plane in Paris just before playing in the French and flew back to visit Morariu in the hospital in Florida for a few days.

“You can’t imagine what strength I got from those things,” Morariu said here Monday.

So it came to pass that, 14 months after her life as she knew it came to a screeching halt with the diagnosis in a Miami hospital, Morariu stepped back onto a tennis court, with Po as her partner, for a women’s pro tour match.

The temperature was in the mid-’80s, the sky bright blue and scattered occasionally with clouds. The swaying palm trees around the stadium court framed colorful flags at the top of the bleachers that represented the countries of the players in this event. An estimated 1,500 people, a bit larger than a normal Monday afternoon tennis crowd, were there to watch.

Morariu and Po were given a wild-card entry into the doubles draw, something that may not be necessary much longer for a player with Morariu’s credentials. The former No. 1 doubles player in the world brought to the La Costa center court a resume that included two Grand Slam event titles--Wimbledon with Davenport in 2000 and an Australian Open mixed with Ellis Ferreira in 2001. The Australian title came just four months before Morariu started getting nosebleeds and feeling weak and, in two days, went from an active player to a cancer patient.

On the court, a fairy tale didn’t come to pass. Morariu and Po lost to a very good team of Chanda Rubin and Meghann Shaughnessy, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.

For most of the match, Morariu was the best player on the court, but rust showed at key times, even though she has had some match play over the last three weeks as a member of the Philadelphia Freedom of the Word Team Tennis League.

Serving for the match at 5-4, she lost at 15 when Shaughnessy, overwhelmed by a tough first serve into her body, fought it off and somehow lofted a winning lob to the backhand corner of the court on break point. Then, on match point, Morariu let a midcourt floating lob get too low and had her topspin backhand catch the net.

So it was over for her at the Acura Classic, but it also was just beginning again for this 24-year-old from Boca Raton. She said she never felt tired during the hour-and-a-half match, was pleased with the way she played and the way she moved, and was eager to get to Manhattan Beach next week for both singles and doubles.

“This is all bonus time for me now,” she said.

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In the key evening match, Mary Pierce was upset by Greta Arn, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. “When it started getting darker I was having trouble seeing and I had a hard time judging the ball,” said Pierce.... No seeded player was scheduled to play Monday, but one was eliminated, anyway. No. 4 Monica Seles suffered a foot injury in practice and withdrew, heading home to Florida but saying she hoped to be ready for Manhattan Beach next week.... Another surprise was the 6-1, 7-6 (4) victory by 17-year-old American Ashley Harkleroad over Italian veteran Rita Grande. Grande kept slicing and getting to the net and making winning volleys. But Harkleroad persevered, broke Grande’s serve at 4-5 of the second set and then survived a case of the nerves when she went from 6-0 in the tiebreaker to 6-4. Grande bailed her out by slapping an easy forehand service return five feet past the baseline on Harkleroad’s fifth match point. Harkleroad was ranked No. 226 going into the match, Grande No. 36.