NCAA Women’s Tennis : Lisa Green Wins Twice, Leaves Fans Starry-Eyed

Lisa Green was holding court after her latest victory in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. individual tournament Tuesday, and after the way she had played, someone got the idea she was ready to take on the queen of Wimbledon.

“Hey, can you beat Martina now?” a star-struck spectator asked.

Green ignored the question. After all, the Stanford sophomore is trying to win her first NCAA singles title, and then there’s Martina Navratilova, who will be attempting to win her ninth Wimbledon singles championship.

And, on the subject of handling star-struck fans, it’s become routine for Green, especially after playing before trendy galleries at Cardinal matches last week. It didn’t quite rival the courtside crew that shows up for Laker games, but there was Wilt Chamberlain lounging in the stands for Stanford’s matches at UCLA’s L.A. Tennis Center during the team tournament.

The rumor mill then cranked up a notch when Rob (Oxford Blues) Lowe made an appearance when Stanford met Georgia in the quarterfinals, sending the Bulldogs into a collective sigh. He was spotted by a few Georgia players watching Green’s match, and an enterprising Bulldog fan turned a videocamera on Lowe, recording him for posterity.

Green, after defeating USC’s Trisha Laux and Susanna Lee of BYU in straight sets to reach the semifinals on Tuesday, put an end to speculation Lowe was there to watch her play last week.

“No, he came to see our whole team play,” she said.

Apparently, Lowe is friends with the son of the family that the Stanford contingent is staying with in Beverly Hills. He came over to visit one day last week, and, subsequently, decided to become part of the entourage for a day.

On Tuesday, sans the trendy entourage, the Stanford players had mixed results. Florida’s Shaun Stafford beat Stanford’s Teri Whitlinger, 6-4, 6-1, in the round of 16, avenging an earlier loss to Whitlinger in the team final. Kay Tittle, a Stanford senior playing in her last tennis tournament because of chronic knee problems, also went out in the round of 16, losing to Karen Shin of California, 6-2, 6-2.

Green, who reached the NCAA semifinals as a freshman last year, beat Laux, 7-6, 6-3, in the round of 16, which was the first time she has ever defeated the USC freshman. She lost to Laux in three sets in the team semifinals on Saturday.

This time, Green took the first-set tiebreaker, 7-0, and used the momentum to win the first 11 points of the second set.

“I just started missing my shots,” said Laux, who was seeded No. 2. “It’s always tough to lose a tiebreaker. I got down and it was hard to come back.”

Green’s coach, Frank Brennan, said that his player has improved a great deal since she reached the final four in 1987.

“She won 18 straight points,” he said. “Which beats her previous record by 15.”

Brennan laughed, adding:

“She used to be so up and down last year. Now, her concentration has become one of her strong points.”

In today’s semifinals at noon, top-seeded Ronni Reis of Miami will meet No. 4 Stafford, and Green will play No. 3 Halle Cioffi of Florida. For Green, her confidence went way up--and has stayed there--after her straight-set victory over Cioffi in the team final. But she isn’t taking Cioffi, or anyone else, lightly.

“She can definitely hurt me (with her shots),” Green said. “She’s a really good player. She has a lof of weapons.”

And, after struggling though the team event, Cioffi has got her game together and hasn’t lost a set in four matches in the singles tournament. She fought off four set points in the second set to defeat UCLA freshman Jessica Emmons, 6-4, 7-5, in the round of 16, and then beat No. 8 Anne Grousbeck of Texas, 7-5, 6-2, in the quarterinals.

“I wasn’t ever hitting the ball last week, I was just out there,” Cioffi said. “Now I feel better and I feel more confident.”

Tennis Notes

The last local player to lose in the individual singles tournament was Pepperdine freshman Janna Kovacevich, who went out in the quarterfinals. No. 1-seeded Ronni Reis of Miami beat Kovacevich, 6-3, 6-4. Kovacevich beat UCLA freshman Stella Sampras, 6-2, 7-6, in the round of 16 earlier on Tuesday. UCLA’s Allyson Cooper lost to Reis in the round of 16.