They’re Still Courting the Game They Love

Walter Ralphs’ spindly legs don’t move quite like they used to. So, he is susceptible to the drop shot and the lob. But he can take a weak serve and whip a forehand winner down the line or step in and crisply punch a cross-court volley into the open court.

“My philosophy is to hit the first ball hard and place it, and then move in for the knockout,” said Ralphs, a Beverly Hills resident who played tennis at Stanford more than 65 years ago. “If they hit a good enough shot back at me, they can have the point. I guess I’m more of a tactician. I’m not a scrambler.”

Maybe not, but how many 87-year-olds are? Most of the time, Ralphs’ smooth, flowing strokes and solid returns work just fine. But last week in the semifinals of the Super Senior Sectionals at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, he ran into someone who was a little quicker, a little steadier and, yes, a little younger.

Howard Moffett’s strokes were choppy, but his serve had some bite and he ran down a lot of balls. Moffett, an 85-year-old from Carpinteria, ousted Ralphs in two sets, and went on to win the men’s 85 title a day later -- outlasting Edwin Doane of Tustin in a three-set final decided by a tiebreaker.

Eighty-five-year olds playing three-set singles marathons? That’s the reality of seniors’ tennis these days. When Ralphs was 45, he played in the oldest age division. The Southern California Tennis Assn. now has divisions for ninetysomethings.

“Probably a few years from now, we’ll have a 95-and-over division,” said Annette Buck, who organizes the Super Seniors tournaments for the association. “For the longest time, the seniors ended at 55. But a lot of the good players pressured the United States Tennis Assn. to keep adding divisions.”

Doane was one of those tennis junkies who wanted to keep competing no matter what. A youth tennis player in Missouri, he played until his knees gave out 10 years ago. Two knee replacement surgeries later, Doane is back out there whacking away. He is a mere 84, but he is able to play in the older age division because he turns 85 before the end of the year.

Doane’s goal is to play into his 100s.

“I want to play tennis right up until the day I die,” said Doane, who has won three national singles titles and 11 more in doubles. “Competition is what I live for. When I was younger, I’d break my neck to get to the ball. I haven’t changed much.”

The super-senior circuit is a blend of tennis lifers such as Doane, recreational players and multi-sport stars who have long ago hung up their cleats and basketball shoes.

“These people still need that competitive outlet,” Buck said. “After all, it’s not like you can play baseball when you’re 80. Tennis is the perfect sport for someone who wants to stay active.”

It’s even better than golf, in Moffett’s book.

“I started playing tennis again because I wanted to stay in shape,” Moffett said. “You get a lot more exercise running around on a tennis court than you do walking around a golf course.”

Moffett spent 46 years as a missionary doctor for the Presbyterian Church in China and Korea, playing tennis whenever he could. Since retiring nine years ago and moving back to the United States, he has been playing three times a week and competing in half a dozen national and regional super-senior events.

Ralphs, a former executive with his family’s chain of grocery stores, walks out to the court with his racquet and floppy hat nearly every day. Last year, he competed in more than a dozen local and national tournaments. Ralphs will cut back this year, but he still plans to make every national event -- the hard courts in Rancho Santa Fe, the indoors in Vancouver, the grass courts in Boston and the clay courts in Pinehurst, N.C.

Moffett and Ralphs are both married and in relatively good health, but Buck said many senior players aren’t as fortunate.

“For the players who’ve had a serious illness or injury or have lost a spouse, senior tennis gives them a reason to get up in the morning,” Buck said. “Senior tennis is social, mental, physical and emotional.”

And for Ralphs, it’s still developmental. Though he played some tennis at Stanford, he didn’t crack the starting lineup and he has never thought much of his strokes. So, as he aged, he began to refine his game.

“I just hate to see people out there hacking away with bad strokes,” Ralphs said. “I wasn’t very good as a junior. But I’ve taken some lessons and worked on my game. As long as I’m going to be out there, I might as well play the right way.”

Moffett admits his strokes aren’t the most fundamentally sound. But at this stage of the game, he figures he’s stuck with them.

“It’s nothing more than a slice chop stroke,” he said. “But I guess it works.”

It works so well that Moffett, a former golfer, soccer and basketball player at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago, has become the top-ranked player among the 40 or so men in Southern California who play in the 85s division. But Moffett said the climb to the top of the rankings ladder hasn’t been a breeze.

“When I was younger and I used to watch the older age groups play, I’d think, ‘I can beat the hell out of those guys,’ ” Moffett said. “But when I got old enough to start competing against those guys, I found they were a lot tougher players than I remembered.”