Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Sunday, June 03, 2001

Lauren Fisher might be the most successful local athlete who most people around here have never heard of.

That's probably because she did not grab headlines as a standout high school player. She didn't even play tennis as a junior and senior at Woodlands Hills High School.

"She didn't have any competition in high school, so she traveled and played in national tournaments," said Craig Perry, who coached Fisher since she was 12. "She just trained with me for four or five hours a day."

Fisher recently completed her freshman season at UCLA and was named the West Region Rookie of the Year by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. She had a 19-18 singles record playing No. 3 or No. 4 singles for the Bruins and teamed with Petya Marinova to rank 18th in doubles with a 23-16 record.

Fisher and Marinova reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I championships, losing to Stanford's second-seeded team of Laura Granville and Gabriela Lastra, 7-6, 2-6, 6-1, at the Lincoln Tennis Center in Stone Mountain, Ga.

"It's nice knowing you did a good job with a kid," said Perry, who trained Fisher at the Oxford Athletic Club in Monroeville when he was the director of tennis. "I could tell right away, when I saw her at 12, that she could be a special tennis player."

Fisher, a center fielder on Woodland Hills' softball team, was selected to the all-section team as a sophomore.

"She's an athlete playing tennis," Perry said. "Most kids are a product of taking lessons. She's not."

The college coaches knew all about Fisher even though she didn't play much tennis at Woodland Hills. Fisher's coach at UCLA is Stella Sampras, whose brother is Pete Sampras.

"You don't get recruited by your high school results," Perry said. "It's the only sport where they don't care about what you did in high school. It's not like football or basketball. Nationally she was well known."

Campus courts

Penn State junior Jamie Gresh lost to No. 3 seed Matias Boeker of the University of Georgia, 6-2, 6-4, in the second round of the NCAA Division I men's singles championships at Athens, Ga. Gresh, an all-Big Ten selection who was unseeded, defeated Indiana State's Jonas Pibor in the first round, 6-4, 6-4.

Gresh, the first player from Penn State to play in the singles championships since Michael Carter in 1997, was 17-14 in singles.

Boeker, a sophomore from Argentina, won the singles title with a 6-2, 6-4 victory against Virginia's Brian Vahaly in the final. Boeker teamed with Travis Parrott to capture the doubles title with a 6-4, 7-5 victory against Southern Methodist's John Brunstrom and Jon Wallmark.

Boeker, who helped Georgia win the team championship, became the third player to sweep the men's singles and doubles titles and be on the championship team.

West Virginia University signed Eric Kochanski of Canon-McMillan High School.

What's happening

The Washington (Pa.)Park men's senior championships will be June 22-24, with age-group events for 35s, 45s and 55s. The registration deadline is June 12. The entry fees are $24 for singles and $28 for doubles. For more information, call 412-341-0258.

Today is the final date for registration in the Wheeling Oglebay Senior Open, a national men's and women's singles and doubles age-group tournament that runs from June 14-17. For more information, call Jack Dorsey at 304-242-8123.

The Citiparks Gamma adult open tournament will be June 28-July 3 at Schenley Park, with championships in men's and women's singles and doubles and mixed doubles. Registration deadline is June 22. Entry fee is $10 singles and $15 doubles. There also will be a men's and women's 35s tournament for 3.5 NTRP league players. Call Jim Rudolph at 412-244-4188.

Citiparks will sponsor round-robin individual leagues for adult men and women and team competition that will run from late June through September. Call Rudolph at 412-244-4188.

Fixer-upper

The Frick Park clay courts in Regent Square are closed for restoration and are expected to open in mid-July.