Tennis: National title at stake

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - It has been billed as the boys team tennis

tournament to standardize all future tournaments.

Since executive director and Corona del Mar High Coach Tim Mang started

organizing it last spring, the first CdM/Pavilions National High School

Invitational Team Tournament has been ballyhooed as the second coming of

national high school team tennis.

At least two out-of-state coaches in the event wish their squads could

stay longer and have a good time in Newport Beach, but a tight schedule

will send most back home Sunday.

For top individuals, the event also serves as a key ingredient to gain

official status on the National High School All-American Team, the

foundation Mang began in 1998 to recognize the country’s best high school

players and generate positive attention to high school tennis.

A national event featuring girls is scheduled for October, with the final

at the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club.

Several locations within the city are hosting sites, including

headquarters Palisades Tennis Club, where the championship final will be

played Saturday at 6 p.m.

Different than the format used in CIF Southern Section team tennis, the

Pavilions National will have six singles and three doubles matches in

eight-game pro sets. A total of nine points are available per match.

From small, private schools on the East Coast like 206-year-old Chesire

Academy to large West Coast public powers like Clovis West of Fresno, the

invitational orchestrated by Mang could provide a platform for high

school tennis never before seen on the nation landscape.

“In all of my (30) years coaching, this will be the first time tennis has

a real, true national invitational,” said Mang, a Balboa Island resident

and a longtime former CIF Southern Section and Ojai Valley Tennis

Tournament seedings official.

“What (prep) sporting event is there, where you can see the top players

in the United States?”

In the 16-team field, Peninsula is seeded first, followed by the host Sea

Kings, the defending CIF Division I champions, No. 3 Cherry Creek of

Englewood, Colo., and No. 4 Dr. Michael Krop of Miami, Fla.

Peninsula, which has been ranked nationally for three straight years,

including top-five spots the last two seasons, was created in 1991 after

a three-high school merger.

It established instant strength and power with the conglomeration of

heavyweights Miraleste, Rolling Hills and Palos Verdes -- all CIF

major-division champions at least once, before Santa Barbara won Southern

Section titles 10 out of 11 years from 1985 through 1995, one of the greatest sports dynasties in section history.

Peninsula, from the land that built Pete Sampras, Tracy Austin and

Lindsay Davenport, was a boys and girls team tennis superpower in the

1990s, and it enters 2000 right where it left off.

Coach Tom Cox’s squad features five nationally ranked players, plus one

other who is nationally ranked in Germany.

CdM, the only Orange County school in the event, is led by nationally

ranked players Brian Morton and Cameron Ball, while Randy Myers, Robert

Kennedy, Michael Bean and Peter Kulmaticki ranked in the top 70 in their

age divisions in Southern California.

The Sea Kings open today in the first round against Woodberry Forest of

Virginia at the Palisades Club at 10:30 a.m.

“It will be nice to get an idea of how we stack up against the best teams

in the United States,” said Woodberry Forest Coach Randy Hudgins, which

won the Virginia Prep League championship last year for the sixth time in

10 seasons.

An all-boys private boarding school, Woodberry Forest is an example of

the diversity in the field. The school has been around since 1889,

enrolls only 395 students but enjoys $140 million in endowment, according

to Hudgins.

Krop, the tournament’s fourth seed, is only two years old, but features

one of the best individuals in Colombia’s Santiago Obando, ranked 42nd in

the world among juniors.

Some high-ranking schools could not attend because of school-district

travel restrictions over 500 miles.

Third-seeded Cherry Creek, which won 323 straight dual matches, a streak

that dates back to 1970, has captured 26 of the last 27 Colorado state

championships.

But Cherry Creek plays its boys season in the fall and girls in the

spring (opposite of California). But that doesn’t concern Bruins Coach

John Gibas.

“I think the perception is that the best tennis is played in California,

Texas and Florida, and for a large part that’s probably true,” Gibas

said. “But one of the reasons we’d like to come to this tournament is to

see how we stack up ... and see if we can compete against teams from

historically strong warm-weather states.”

The Newport Beach Tennis Club, Costa Mesa Tennis Center and Park Newport

Apartments are also hosting matches.

Proceeds of the tournament go toward recognizing high school tennis

All-Americans via the National High School Tennis All-American

Foundation.

Tickets are available through ETM at Vons and Pavilions stores. Call

(888) ETM-TIXS or purchase tickets online at www.etm.com.