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Beatty's
second-set comeback stops Buck
By Richard J.
Marcus
SPECIAL TO THE
UNION-TRIBUNE
August 12, 2002
After Danon Beatty,
15, of Bakersfield won the Super National
Girls 16 Hardcourt Championships yesterday,
Beatty's coach pointed out something on the
trophy.
Craig Cignarelli stressed the words
"Singles Champion" and Beatty let
out a spirited giggle.
"Danon recognizes that she is the
champion, and now it is engraved for her to
see," Cignarelli said.
For the ninth-seeded Beatty, there was
plenty of reason to be giddy at center court
of the Barnes Tennis Center. She had just
defeated eighth-seeded Brook
Buck of Yukon, Okla., 6-2, 7-5,
after trailing 0-5 in the second set, to win
her first Super National championship.
Beatty's feat earned her an automatic bid
into the upcoming U.S. Open for Juniors in New
York.
"I'm a little in shock right
now," Beatty said. "I don't think it
will sink in until tomorrow."
After winning the first set, Beatty went
from being the effective aggressor to the
reactive defender.
"In the first set I was real
aggressive and putting balls away," she
said. "Then I started playing defensively
in the second set and not playing my
game."
Beatty regained her aggressiveness,
however, and thwarted triple set point when
she was down 3-5, 0-40.
With momentum shifting, Buck lost
confidence and started making unforced errors,
which gave Beatty even more of an edge.
"She just turned it on in the second
set," Buck said. "She changed her
game after it was 5-0. From that point on, she
didn't miss very much."
Said Buck's coach, Tim Ritchie: "Brook
got tight in the second set and that hurt her.
Danon played awfully well, though."
Beatty, a high school sophomore who does
independent study to give her time for tennis,
started playing tennis at age 8. She often
hits with her brother Ryan, who plays tennis
for the University of Texas.
"Danon has worked incredibly hard over
the past three months to get ready for this
tournament," Cignarelli said. "It
all paid off for her today."
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She's
creative on and off the court
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Alessandra
Jordan, the #1 seed in the USTA
girls' 16s Super Nationals |
By Jerry Magee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 9, 2002
Hitting a tennis ball with a tennis racket can be
trying enough. Try serving and volleying with a
baseball bat.
The concept is one that Alessandra
Jordan came up with as a means of
sharpening her hand-eye coordination. Result: the
Tennis Bat (patent pending), half bat, half tennis
racket.
Jordan, 15, began wielding this hybrid, which
resembles a sawed-off bat with a tennis handle, in
practices about five months ago.
"It has improved my coordination and improved
my volleys – until the nerves kick in," she
said.
Jordan, of El Paso, Texas, is the No. 1 seed in the
USTA Super National Girls 16 Hardcourt Championships
that conclude Sunday at the Barnes Tennis Center. She
cruised into today's 11 a.m. quarterfinals with a 6-4,
6-4 win yesterday over No. 9 Brintney Larson of
Orchard Park, N.Y., and is the only seeded player
lower than No. 8 remaining in the tournament after
unseeded Camelia Todorova of La Jolla upset No. 5
Amanda Taylor of Richland, Wash., 7-6 (7-3), 1-6, 6-3.
Todorova plays No. 9 Danon Beatty of Bakersfield in
the quarterfinals, while Jordan takes on No. 17 Sophie
Grabinski of Carmel, Ind.
Tennis aside, Jordan could have a future as an
inventor. According to Domingo Jordan, 50, her father,
she also has created a device that makes it possible
for her to practice against a static ball as opposed
to a moving ball.
This device involves a cone similar to the ones
found on highways, a motor and a flow of air. Atop the
air is floated a tennis ball.
"You can learn footwork from it,"
Alessandra's father said.
Said Valerie Ziegenfuss, a USTA national coach:
"She has movement, and tennis is a game of
movement. She's also got attitude. She wants to
win."
How far Alessandra can go in tennis at a more
advanced level can be questioned because of her size.
She is a fraction less than 5-foot tall.
Her father said Alessandra won the Super National
Girls 14 Hardcourt event last year in Atlanta while
putting only three first serves into play in the
entire tournament.
"I told her, 'Alessandra, if you can win a
tournament with a second serve, what can you do with a
first serve?' "
Her answer was to go into the Jordan garage in El
Paso and create the Tennis Bat, which her father said
she makes herself out of aluminum tubing. She can
serve with it. Some have been marketed, according to
her father. Price: $59.
Alessandra hasn't decided what she wants to do with
her future, her father said.
"Sometimes, she says she wants to go to
college, and sometimes she says she wants to play
professionally," Domingo Jordan said. "She
is doing the work; it's her choice. But I'm starting
to believe she can hang with the big girls."
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Teen
tennis hitting Beaches
August 3, 2002
Imagine a grown man having to spend a week with 192 teen-age
girls. Now imagine the same man having to deal with some of
their parents.
"That's the difficult part," said Larry Willens
in a reference to the parents.
Willens is the tournament director of the USTA Super
National Girls 16 Hardcourt Tennis Championships, with the
contestants gathering today at the Barnes Tennis Center in
Ocean Beach and beginning play tomorrow, starting at 8:30 a.m.
The final is a week from tomorrow at 10:30 a.m.
Players are drawn from 17 USTA districts. They must be
nationally ranked or have been endorsed by their section in
order to compete. Alessandra Jordan of El
Paso, Texas, is the
No. 1 seed and Melissa Mang of Metairie, La., is No. 2.
In all, there are 32 seeds, all of whom draw first-round
byes. Only the top eight are seeded numerically. Other seeds
are in two groups, 9-16 and 17-32.
In the 17-32 group are Esther Cadua of San Diego and
Nazlie
Ghazal of Temecula.
A dinner for the players is being offered tonight at the
tournament site.
– JERRY MAGEE
Chasing Tennis Balls, Rankings
Father
keeps the Strimple sisters on the run
By Jerry Magee
STAFF WRITER
July 30, 2002
CARLSBAD – Two sisters. They play tennis. Their father
exercises a strong voice concerning what they do on the
courts. The older one is the more slender.
The Williams sisters, you say. On another level, yes, them,
too. But the reference is to the Strimple sisters, Ashley, 16,
and Kristin, 13, who live just over the hill from the La Costa
Resort and Spa, site of this week's Acura Classic.
As ball persons, the Strimples are spending this week
policing up balls at the event. This weekend they will be
playing in a tournament, the USTA Super National Girls 16
Hardcourt Championships, which is a long name for what is a
very large event starting Sunday at the Barnes Tennis Center.
The draw is to include 192 players, which makes the tournament
four times as big in terms of player participation as the
Acura Classic.
All the players competing at the Barnes Center will have
qualified in one of 17 USTA districts, according to tournament
director Larry Willens. That Kristin at 13 has qualified to
challenge players three years her senior suggests what sort of
a prospect she is.
Said Steve Stumm, an accomplished player who is among
Kristin's hitting partners: "She can go all the
way."
Kristin's father is not quite so bold. "It's tough to
know," said Steve Strimple of Kristin's tennis future.
"There are so many good players out there. But she has
the speed and the athleticism."
The senior Strimple's expectations for Ashley are more
reserved, for this reason: She was not introduced to tennis
until she was 7 and did not begin playing tournaments until
she was 12. Kristin first picked up a racket at 5 and was
competing at 7.
The girls' father is a teacher (of Bible studies and
English) and the tennis coach at Santa Fe Christian School in
Solana Beach. As there are "tennis mothers,"
Strimple would be a "tennis father," a term he said
he does not consider objectionable.
Tennis parents, he argued, have an unfair image. "A
lot of people who have made it in tennis have had a parent
involved," said Strimple, citing Jennifer Capriati,
Monica Seles and the Williamses, all coached at one time or
another by their fathers.
Strimple says John McEnroe and Richard Williams, the
sisters' father, are the most interesting persons in the
tennis community. But no, he does not intend to follow the
same course with his daughters that Richard Williams has taken
with Venus and Serena.
"He did it his way," said Strimple. "Ours
will be a little milder and gentler way."
The Strimple sisters play tennis every day, Ashley at the
Surf and Turf Tennis Club in Solana Beach, Kristin at the West
Coast Tennis Academy at La Costa. Tennis and schoolwork
constitute their lives. They are early to bed and must rouse
at an early hour because their father must be in school.
"Not much is wasted," said the girls' father.
"I think the girls have made more sacrifices and have
more opportunities than the average kid."
On the court, both girls swing with both hands on the
racket, a la Monica Seles. Their father explained that when
they began playing they did not possess sufficient power to
knock a ball over the net with one hand.
"If I could do something, it would be to convert them
to one-handed strokes," he said. "But muscle memory
is made at 11 or 12."
Kristin's grandfather addresses her as "Coetzer"
because, like Amanda, she has such nimble feet, developed in
youth soccer. Ashley, who also has a soccer background, is
likened to Seles.
"In the eighth grade I had to do a hero project, and I
took Monica," said Ashley. "The teacher wanted to
keep my work, but I still have it."
Seles and the retired Steffi Graf are Kristin's favorites.
"She was competitive," Kristin said of Graf,
"but at the same time she was nice to everybody."
In the girls 12 class, Kristin held a No. 14 national
ranking a year ago and would have been No. 4 in Southern
California. "But I blew it," her father said.
"I was one tournament short (of the minimum number of
tournaments required for Kristin to be ranked), and they
dropped her off the face of the earth."
The Strimples' father isn't their only tennis adviser.
Steve Strimple said Valerie Ziegenfuss, a USTA national coach,
has been particularly helpful. "Juniors like to isolate
themselves with their coaches; they don't want to play one
another," said Strimple. "Valerie has been awesome
for us; she has done a great job in drawing players together
by age groups."
Steve Strimple is aware that only 1 percent of elite junior
players become professionals. Five percent win college
scholarships. "If we are part of the 5 percent,"
said the Strimple girls' father, "I'll be happy."
This weekend, for the Strimples it's off to another
tournament. After they arrive at the Barnes Center, Steve
Strimple will be excusing himself.
"I can't watch," he said. "Mom takes
over."
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