Tennis: Newport Beach Tennis Club building up for the ‘McEnroe

Tour’

Richard Dunn

Dave Bain is single, young, handsome and easygoing. Would probably

fit in great in Newport Beach.

Bain, however, lives in Pennsylvania, where his company, which is

operating the Success Magazine Champions this week at Newport Beach

Tennis Club, is based.

On assignment with two colleagues who build and construct tennis

stadiums, Bain has lived the past month in an apartment south of the Park

Place in Irvine, about three minutes down the street from Newport Beach

Tennis Club.

Bain & Co. are here to build and construct a facility for the

Champions Tour stop, which will seat over 2,000 people in a cozy, garden

environment.

Some of the intimate details include two well-manicured pine trees

between the scoreboard at center court, a rare sunken-in center court, at

that.

“(The club) is similar to some of the setup and layout at the Four

Seasons in Dallas, with the deck and sunken-in court,” said Bain, the

event’s director of operations who has been building event stadiums for

two years. “Those are the only two facilities (on the men’s senior tennis

tour) with a sunken court.”

In 1977 when the club hosted a U.S. Davis Cup tie against South

Africa, the two pine trees either didn’t exist or were too small to be

seen in a photograph of the center court taken back then.

“There were bleachers all back there,” Bain said of the photo of the

club’s north side, where seating will be limited for the Champions event,

featuring John McEnroe and seven others on the worldwide senior tennis

circuit Wednesday through Sunday.

“This place has changed a little bit since ’77. Trees have grown and

things have gotten a lot taller ... for the Davis Cup, (stadium

operators) did a lot of tearing up facility. We decided to make it more

intimate. We’re not tearing it up and we’re not cutting down trees and

we’re not tearing up fences. We’re making it smaller than the Davis Cup.

It’ll be more fan friendly and intimate.”

The east side of Newport Beach Tennis Club, which gets the sun in the

late afternoon, will seat about 600, Bain said, while the west side will

seat “probably around 700 to 750 ... that’s the biggest bleachers

(setup).”

The event, which also features Scott Davis, the club’s director of

tennis and former top-ranked doubles player in the world, will kick off

Wednesday with Davis playing Yannick Noah. McEnroe will play his first

match Thursday against Davis. For tickets: 1-866-7-MATCH.

Tennis has always sold in Newport Beach with a marquee name, but fans

are understandably fickle for the unknowns. That’s why it’s imperative

that McEnroe at least reach the final on Sunday at 1 p.m. -- Mother’s

Day, of all days.

McEnroe is the tour. Plain and simple. Jimmy Connors, who helped

launch the tour in 1993, is not playing.

McEnroe, who reached his 10th Champions Tour final in 11 events during the 2000-01 campaign at Naples, Fla., in March, is the only player ever

to receive the tour’s Player of the Year honor, since it changed three

years ago to a new round-robin format.

It’s entertainment and something different on the calendar, and, if

the weather warms up, like Bain is hoping, it could be the perfect

Mother’s Day gift.

Parking for the Champions Tour stop will include a parking structure

at UC Irvine, with shuttles transporting fans back and forth throughout

the day and evening, Bain said.

Matches begin each night at 7 p.m., but Bain said nothing will go

beyond 10 p.m., while abiding city curfew ordinances for the Corona del

Mar community at Eastbluff.

In a conference call Tuesday, Swedish star Mats Wilander said the only

way the Champions Tour can generate more interest is to include players

like Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker, both fellow Europeans who are

enjoying their retirement years at a young age.

“I think once you get to a certain stage in your life, you can’t

improve anymore, and that takes the competitiveness out of the game a

little bit,” Wilander said. “So that’s why I think the names are

important, and different faces are more important on our tour than the

regular (ATP) tour.

“I think on the regular tour people can go and watch two unknowns, and

they have a really good match and (the fans) really enjoy it. (Whereas)

on the senior tour, you get two unknown seniors, and people know well we

can see better tennis somewhere else.”

Yeah, like right down the street in Newport Beach, where there are

three other private tennis clubs -- Palisades Tennis Club, Newport Beach

Marriott Hotel and Tennis Club and Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club.

“I think that McEnroe is carrying the tour,” Wilander added. “There’s

just not enough tennis interest in the world at the moment to have two

very competitive tours doing great.”