Veteran, aged 21, set for comeback

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 15

Veteran, aged 21, set for comeback

NZPA-Reuter Loreto, Mexico From her home in California, Tracy Austin has announced she intends making yet another comeback to tennis sometime early next year.

“I do not have a schedule, an exact date, but I have been working out and getting stronger and things are looking good right now,” said Austin, the 1979 and 1981 United States Open champion. This year Austin, who was ranked in the top ten in the world from 1978-1983, played just two tournaments. She lost in the second round at Chicago in early February to Barbara Potter and suffered another second-round loss the following week at the

United States indoor championships to Pam Casale.

In 1983 she played in just eight tournaments, the. last in June of that year in Eastbourne, England, where she retired in the semifinals because of a recurring back injury.

Similar back and sciatic nerve problems had severely curtailed her playing schedule in the two previous years.

“I tried to play in February and I was still playing injured so I decided I had to get over all the injuries and get my strength back to where it was before. I had to take my time. You cannot take shortcuts and that is what I was trying to do. Little patches here, little patches there,” said Austin,

a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 1979 and again the following year. “It was becoming a vicious cycle. You come back and you are not quite in shape as before and then you get injured again. I finally decided I had to get back in total shape. “The hardest thing I had to do was accepting that I was injured, because I was used to playing with all the aches and pains,” she said.

It is not too late for Austin to make a comeback. While it may seem that she has been around forever, making her debut as a 15-year-old at Wimbledon in 1977, the youngest ever to play there, and becoming the youngest at 16 to win the United States Open in 1979, Austin will only turn 22 this December.

“It might have been a blessing because I think I am much happier now, a different person,”, said Austin, whose appearance now makes it hard to remember those days of pinafore dresses, braces and pigtails. “When you have to go through a hard process like this you learn a lot about yourself. I feel I am a richer person, more of a complete person,” continued Austin, who has done some television commentating at tournaments this year, and organised the Tracy Austin pro-celebrity event in her hometown of Palos Verdes, California.

“When I do go back I will bring something back with me, something added,” Austin said.