Troubled times for young American tennis player

Press, 15 June 1983, Page 32

Troubled times for young American tennis player

By

RON ATKIN

in Paris

Remember Tracy Austin? The girl with pigtails, pinafore dresses and teeth braces who captured Wimbledon’s heart at 14? The girl who hardly knew what it felt like to lose? Tracy has grown up now. She’s 20, attractive and carefully groomed — and rich. She has learnt a lot, too. Like how to cope with physical pain and now to live with defeat When she was beaten recently by Jo Durie in the quarter-finals of the French Open, it was the seventh time this year that Tracy had finished on the wrong side of the net. As she sets up camp in England to hone her game on grass for the challenge of Wimbledon, she will doubtless be reflecting that a tournament victory would be welcome, not to mention overdue. Miss Austin last won a tournament in July, 1982, at San Diego, in her home state of California. Statistics chart the depressing tale of her slide. In 1981 she won 56 matches, lost eight and won seven of the 14 tournaments in which she competed. Last year’s figtires were: won 36, lost 14 and only one title in 13 attempts. This year Tracy has been operating at about the same consistency level, winning 19 of her 26 matches. She was beaten by the bright Hungarian 17-year-old, Andrea Temesvari, in the quarter-finals at Oakland last February, but her worst defeat so far was the one inflicted by Miss Durie. What’s happened to Tracy? Worrying injuries have imposed a crippling rein on her ambitions since the end of 1980 but, perhaps just as important, she has

cast off the blinkers which once restricted her vision to the width of a tennis court. Tracy, whose dedication to tennis was so total that she missed her own high school graduation because of a tournament commitment, has matured. Fallen in love even. Her boy-friend is Matt Anger, a 19-year-old Californian college boy and, of course, ah excellent tennis player who was junior Wimbledon champion two years ago. He pinpoints one of Tracy’s problems when he says: “She has more

interests than she had before.” Or, as her contemporary and friendly rival, Andrea Jaeger, puts it: “If she loses now she’s not that upset. Before, tennis was everything.” Tracy herself said in Paris: “I’m not worried about my results. The hunger is still there but you have- to be healthy. It’s a vicious circle. Once you get injured other things tend to go wrong.

“I realise this is a very important year, but it’s not a turning point or anything.

Because I was out for four months last year my body was not as strong as it should have been. It takes a lot of hard work to come back and it was difficult to have the intensity. When you make the effort your body says ‘Hey’.” Tracy’s still-developing body, subjected to the continual stresses of walloping a tennis ball, first said “Hey” at the end of 1980, and she spent the first four months of 1981 sidelined by sciatic nerve trouble. She came back from that strongly enough to take the Eastbourne title, reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon (where she first met Matt Anger) and lose only five matches in the second half of the season, winning the United States Open for the second time at the age of 18.

But early last year, in Tracy’s own words, “Bam, I got injured again.” She suffered a recurrence of her back problem, and other troubles and distractions swiftly piled on top of that. She was badly scalded when a waiter spilled soup over her in Los Angeles; she was taken ill during events in

Edgbaston and Montreal; and every time she lost, people wanted to know what was wrong.

“Last year I grew up a lot,” says Tracy. “I was going out seriously with Matt, I got injured, I got sick, everything happened in one year. “Now it’s a matter of sorting it out in practice and digging it all up again. Because I won the United States Open twice by the time I was 18 I set my standards high. I am only 20 now and I’Ve got sick of

everybody saying I’m not doing well. I'm ranked fourth in the world, which isn’t bad.

“The pressures are terrible. Everywhere you go there are 900 people wanting to know what’s wrong with you. It’s something you have to live with and learn to deal with. I’m not going to put pressure on myself by letting people be negative about me.

“I’ve worked hard on my game over the last four months and I feel I am good enough to win Wimbledon. I’ll do the best I can, that’s all. Don’t worry about my desire, it’s still there. It’s no big deal, I will come through again.” Robert Lansdorp, the Cal-ifornia-based Dutchman who coached Tracy in her early days and is still helping her at tournaments despite a recent rift over contracts, said in Paris: “She has lost a little selfbelief. When Tracy walked on court she used to think there was nobody as good as her. Then all of a sudden she started thinking the other kids were good and she’s become paranoid

about it. “She should be more like Ivan Lendl. According to him, nobody else can play tennis. That’s the way to think: Nobody else is equal to you.”

Lansdorp is forecasting the imminent arrival on the world circuit of another Tracy Austin. She is a sft Bin 13-year-old from California named Stephanie Rehe, whojyill be trying to qualify for Wimbledon if she has recovered fully from an ankle sprain sustained in the Italian Open last month.

“Stephanie shows a lot of talent,” says Lansdorp, who is coaching the youngster. “She is different to Tracy, she loves to come up to the net, she’s more flashy, good service motion and a good feel for the volleys.” And, he might have added, bags of good old American self-belief. —

Copyright, London Observer Service.