OUTNUMBERED ON THE COURT

When Woodbridge High’s Adam Artunian went looking for a college tennis scholarship last summer, he figured his main competitors would be teenagers from Southern California and Florida, tennis hotbeds in the United States. Artunian didn’t realize 20-year-old Australians or 23-year-old Germans were vying for the same scholarships he was.

“I didn’t even consider it at all,” Artunian said. “I didn’t think they’d come over here to compete with us, not 22-year-olds with pro experience.”

International players aren’t just competing, they’re dominating the American men’s college tennis scene. This year’s preseason Rolex Collegiate Tennis Rankings looked like a guest list to a United Nations dinner. Thirty-four of the top 50 men’s singles players were foreigners, representing 12 countries. In the latest rankings, eight of the top nine players were foreigners.

“It’s kind of ridiculous,” said Artunian, 20th in last year’s boys’ 18s Southern California rankings. “But I don’t blame them [for wanting to play in the U.S.]. There’s a lot of competition over here.”

Artunian’s father, Rich, sounded a warning to parents of American male junior tennis players.

“I would tell kids to go into tennis because you like playing, not for the scholarship,” he said. “It’s a real eye-opener. The problem is unlike any other sport. You’re competing with foreign players for maybe one or two spots, sometimes three. I think it’s totally wrong. They should really limit the number of foreign players.”

If there were more men’s tennis scholarships, the number of foreign players wouldn’t affect Americans as much. But when each Division I coach has only 4 1/2 scholarships to give, each scholarship becomes extremely valuable. Foreign players also stand out in women’s college tennis--30 of the top 50 singles players are foreigners. But since women teams are allotted eight scholarships, U.S. women don’t face the numbers crunch men do.

Proposal Fails

There was a time when men’s tennis coaches also had eight scholarships to give. But in the budget-cutting days of the 1970s, men’s tennis was one of the sports to take a hit. Scholarships were reduced from eight to five and later to 4 1/2. As more foreign players discovered the benefits of American college tennis--a free education and an opportunity to play against top-level competition--the percentage of Americans getting scholarships began to dwindle.

Four years ago, college tennis coaches tried to create more opportunities for American junior players. Sixty percent of Division I and II tennis coaches surveyed favored a rule that would mandate giving U.S. players at least 50% of the scholarships per team. However the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. never pressed the NCAA on trying to implement such a policy, fearing it might be ruled discriminatory by the courts.

So although a majority of men’s coaches object to the increasing presence of foreigners in their sport, many don’t practice what they preach.

“I got the feeling when I was talking to a lot of these coaches, they’d like to have an American on their team but they didn’t have the money,” Artunian said.

Mission Viejo senior Eric Bachelor, ranked one spot behind Artunian last year in Southern California, said he got a similar feeling.

“Most schools said other schools were recruiting foreigners, so they had to do the same thing in order to stay competitive,” said Bachelor, who has a 4.0 grade-point average and a Southern California doubles ranking of four.

It wasn’t long ago that players with Bachelor and Artunian’s credentials were getting the scholarships they desired. Foreign players were part of the college tennis landscape in the 1970s and 1980s, but they were scattered all over the country and they rarely numbered more than one to a team. Until that time, track was one of the few sports in which foreigners made their presence felt in American colleges. These days, many college tennis teams consist solely of foreign players.

Alabama Birmingham and Northeast Louisiana met in the finals of last month’s UC Irvine tournament and started entire lineups of foreign players. Andrew Kim, whose son Kevin was a freshman player at UCLA last year, didn’t realize how much college tennis had changed until he attended a match against Arizona State.

“They were all speaking in their native tongues and nobody could understand what they were saying,” Kim said. “It made for an interesting match.”

Limited Options

Bill Smith, Bachelor’s coach at Mission Viejo, doesn’t find the limited options facing American juniors very interesting. Smith, who has coached tennis for nearly 40 years, said Bachelor and players like him deserve better.

“If you’re at a certain level, you don’t have to worry,” Smith said. “But if you’re at that next level, you’re going to be scratching around.”

Servite’s Ryan Moore, Woodbridge’s Chase Exon and Foothill’s Joost Hol are at that certain level. They are ranked among the top seven in Southern California and the top 50 nationally. Moore was given a full scholarship to USC, Exon and Hol will have close to full scholarships at Pepperdine and Northwestern.

Meanwhile, Bachelor and Artunian are scratching around. Artunian had hoped to play at a Pac-10 school, but he will probably settle for a half-scholarship to Santa Clara.

Bachelor was also hoping to play Pac-10 tennis, but he will probably end up with a 60% scholarship to Utah, Loyola Marymount or Santa Clara, none of which is among the top 75 men’s programs.

Neither Artunian nor Bachelor was recruited by UCI men’s Coach Steve Clark, but Moore, Exon and Hol were. In the past two years, Clark has offered full scholarships to 10 Southern Californians. Only Nick Varvais of Simi Valley Royal accepted his offer.

“I recruit California kids more than any coach I know,” said Clark, who supported the rule limiting foreign players. “But they don’t want to stay at home.

“I’ve bent over backward for guys in California. But if they don’t want to be here, I’m going with the guy who wants to be here. What am I going to do, recruit the No. 50 player in Southern California or the No. 3 player in India?”

He’s going to do what most coaches are doing--recruit the No. 3 player from India. Three years ago, Clark said he walked into his athletic director’s office and asked for a bigger recruiting budget.

“I told him, ‘If you want us to get back into the top 15, we’re going to have to start recruiting foreigners.”

Former UCI Coach Greg Patton, a strong supporter of American tennis, turned Boise State into a tennis power in less than five years. But he did so with the help of international players.

“Every scholarship I have, I offer it first to Americans,” Patton said. “A lot of the American kids are tied into the tradition of the top schools and they won’t consider some of the lesser known tennis schools.”

Clark said the foreign player is often much less discriminating.

“I’ve got foreign kids chomping at the bit to be here,” he said. “To them, Southern California is paradise.”

It certainly was for Mark Kaplan, who grew up in South Africa and came to Southern California to play at UCI for Patton from 1986 to 1989. Kaplan now lives in Irvine and coaches American juniors.

“It’s so appealing for a foreign player,” said Kaplan, who walked on to Irvine and eventually became the Anteaters’ No. 1 player. “You get to see the states and play tennis against good amateur players and you get a free education. There is nothing like this outside of the United States. For me there were some good educational schools in South Africa, but there no schools with tennis. If you wanted to continue your tennis career, you could try to play professionally or come to the states for a tennis scholarship.”

Professional Experience

Many international players try to do both. They play a few years on the European satellite circuit, then come to the United States and play college tennis. In Europe, players can accept prize money to cover expenses, but often this compensation is not closely monitored. This puts players’ pro status in a gray area.

“The Europeans are a lot more mature than the Americans and they’re playing on a professional level,” Kaplan said.

Is it a fair fight? An 18-year-old American vs. a 22-year-old European with years of professional competition? Artunian doesn’t think so.

“It’s kind of frustrating,” Artunian said. “The foreign guys are good players and I don’t want to exclude them. But it does make it hard on the U.S. players. I just think the coaches should look a little longer at the U.S. players. I think many of them are looking directly at the foreign player without considering the American.”

As a coach, Smith understands why foreign players are so attractive to college programs.

“I don’t blame the coaches a bit,” Smith said. “He’s got to find a way to win. If I was coaching college tennis, I’d be doing the same thing.”

Kaplan said he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with having three or four foreign players to a team.

“It’s good for competition,” he said. “The best people should be out there. There are so many schools out there for these kids. I don’t think there should be any free lunches. If foreigners are setting the bar higher, that’s good for college tennis.”

But is it good for American tennis?

“If everybody is from a foreign country, what are we raising?” Tiley said. “The objective is to raise the level of American tennis.”

Patton, who is leaving Boise State for a coaching job with the USTA, said there need to be more coaches like Tiley.

“The only way anything could change is if the coaches say, ‘Enough’s enough.’ ” Patton said. “It’s hurting the game in the states.”

A new rule recently implemented by the NCAA might help the American game and it could help players like Artunian and Bachelor. Beginning this year, foreign players must begin matriculating into college tennis within a year of high school graduation. If they wait longer than a year, they lose a year’s worth of eligibility for each year they wait.

“That will cut down on this somewhat,” Tiley said. “It will cut down on having 24-year-old freshmen.”

Dave Benjamin, ITA director, said he believes the new rule will eventually decrease the number of foreign players given scholarships by as much as 30%.

“The full effect won’t be seen for at least four or five years,” Benjamin said.

That will be too late for Bachelor.

“My parents have paid for the lessons, the shoes and the strings,” Bachelor said. “A full-ride scholarship would have been a nice reward for my hard work and a pay back for my parents’ support.”