TRACY AUSTIN: A NET LOSS : After Courting Another Life, She Might Return

There she was, the one-time teen queen of tennis, stepping onto center court to play a match before a crowd for the first time in four years.

She wore a pink, sleeveless tennis outfit that exposed well-toned arms. Missing were the familiar pigtails and freckles that were once her trademark.

The crowd roared at the announcement: “To my left, a real treat. For the first time in years, Tracy Austin!

“As a special request of Tracy Austin’s, this will be an eight-game set with ad scoring. She wants to show her stuff this afternoon.”

It wasn’t Wimbledon or the National Tennis Center, but it was a chance for Austin to show her stuff once again.

Playing in her own charity tournament to raise money for the South Bay Children’s Hospital, Austin was unquestionably the star attraction, even though John Forsythe and Steve Lundquist, a 1984 Olympic swimming gold medalist, were also playing.

“A month before the tournament, she asked me, ‘Do you need another celebrity to play?’ ” said Frank Masi, executive director of the South Bay Children’s Hospital and one of the founders of the tournament.

“I said, ‘Yeah, who?’ She just said, ‘Me. This means more to me than anything.’

“I couldn’t believe it. I thought she was kidding after all those years of not playing.”

On this bright Saturday in October, she played mixed doubles with her brother John in the 10th annual Tracy Austin Pro-Celebrity tournament at the West End Racquet Club in Torrance. It was her first public performance since quitting professional tennis in 1983 after a series of injuries.

“It felt good,” she said. “It was really neat and fun to play again.”

It was fun for the crowd too, but tinged with sadness. It was like watching Shirley Temple suddenly all grown up, when you still remember her so vividly and fondly as a child.

Like it or not, Tracy Austin is no longer a teen-ager. She is a 24-year-old woman who has enjoyed her life away from professional tennis.

“Everyone needs a time to have no commitments, a time where there’s nothing you really have to do,” said George Austin, her father.

“For most people, it’s a childhood phase with no responsibility. For Tracy, that phase has been the last four years, and it’s been great for her.”

The transition wasn’t as easy as many of her victories. The first six months away from the tennis circuit were often depressing for someone who was suddenly inactive after having played tennis every day as far back as she could remember.

But Austin says she has treasured every moment since escaping that depression.

“I’m very involved in different areas of life,” she said. “I’m very happy and busy and working on different projects.”

The changes have been more than cosmetic, more than just dressing in “grown-up” clothes as commentator on the U.S. Open for CBS or because she was on “Good Morning America,” ESPN and ABC interviewing players at Wimbledon.

And it’s not because she’s done TV commercials with her hair down instead of in pigtails, or because she met the Queen of England and participated with President and Mrs. Reagan in an anti-drug campaign.

Austin says it is life away from tennis that has changed her.

Her brother John said: “She’s matured as a person. She’s well rounded and . . . just mature now.”

Austin giggled, rolled her eyes then paused to think for a moment when asked how she’s changed.

“Just that zest for life!” she said, smiling. “I have a real zest for life and I’m so outgoing now. I’ve really just enjoyed myself doing fun, crazy things that I couldn’t do when I was growing up because of the disciplined life I led.

“I mean till I was 21 I focused on one thing: tennis! And there were a lot of commitments that went with it.”

She paused briefly, nodded and sighed.

“A huge change is that I’m independent now. I make all my own decisions and also . . . I think I’ve grown as a person.”

Austin doesn’t even remember the last time she did an interview, only that it’s been years.

“Sports Illustrated and Tennis magazine have called me, but there’s nothing to say,” she said.

Austin didn’t want to be interviewed by The Times either. At first she said she would talk only if it was about her charity tournament. She later agreed to an interview, but said she would answer no questions on a possible tennis comeback “because that’s all anyone wants to ask me” or give any details of her private life.

“I’ve really just been enjoying my private life, living in Rolling Hills. I’ve just been happy.

“Other than that, there’s not much more to say. That’s why I haven’t done an interview in a long time.”

In the Rolling Hills Estates condominium where she has lived for the last five years, there are no tennis photos, trophies or other signs of anything that would identify her as a one-time tennis star.

“Why would I want tennis stuff in my house?” she said, shrugging. “I’m just a normal person.

“I mean, I love tennis. It is a great sport, and I wouldn’t trade my childhood for the world. I saw the world and I learned a lot because of it, but this is my time to be free and have fun.”

Austin has been content living out of the public eye, away from the glare that once tracked her every move.

“It wasn’t easy for her growing up,” said Cari Utnehmer, Austin’s friend since eighth grade. “When we were younger, we couldn’t even go to Magic Mountain without people hopping the line to get her autograph. She had that face that everyone recognized.

“Because she’s out of the limelight, she’s done a lot of things that she just didn’t get a chance to do then.”

Austin is surrounded by what’s most important to her, her family and friends. A lot of her friends have never even seen her play.

There are family photos throughout Austin’s stylish living room--patterned after a picture she saw in a magazine. One photo shows her with three young women next to a ship, leis around necks and big smiles on their faces.

“You see!” she said, grabbing the framed photo. “I went on a cruise to Mexico with my three best friends. Those are things I couldn’t do before.”

Since she stopped competing in 1983, Austin says she’s been doing normal things. The two-time U.S. Open champion has even become domestic. She’s learning to cook and does a lot of reading, favoring love stories and mysteries.

Most importantly, according to Austin, she has made good friends away from tennis, friends who know her as “just Tracy” and don’t care if she played tennis or hockey.

“She goes to movies, dancing and just enjoys life,” said Cecilia Fernandez, Austin’s childhood friend, who played tennis at USC. “I think this is the happiest time of her life. She realizes there’s more to life than just tennis.

“Before, her life was tennis, tennis, tennis. When we were kids, we didn’t go to dances, parties or football games. We really didn’t have a social life at all. We were always playing tennis.”

Austin’s tennis career started when she was 2. The manager at a tennis club sawed off the end of a racket so she could handle it and offered her a little trophy if she could hit five balls in a row against the wall. A week later, she earned the little silver trophy that today sits in her parents house along with many others.

Her professional career started at 15. But Austin had become famous a year earlier by becoming the youngest player in 100 years to win a match at Wimbledon. Only 14, she reached the third round, then, a few months later, made it to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open.

In 1979, when Austin was 16, she won her first U.S. Open title by defeating Chris Evert. Earlier that year she reached the Wimbledon semifinals by defeating Billie Jean King--who had won 19 Wimbledon titles. She was beaten by eventual champion, Martina Navratilova. Austin also won the Italian Open that year.

By April 1980, at 17, Austin was the top-ranked female tennis player in the world. Almost four years later she was forced to quit the pro circuit primarily because of a chronic back problem.

At 21, Austin had won two U.S. Open singles, a Wimbledon mixed doubles with her brother John, an Italian Open, along with 20 junior and numerous clay and indoor titles.

Evert, the third-ranked player in the world says that Austin would have continued to be one of the top-ranked players in the game for a long time if she could have stayed injury-free.

“She was very consistent,” Evert said. “Her consistency would have pulled her through.”

Even if there are doubts about how good she could have been, there are none on how good she was.

“I guess I was so young that I didn’t really know what I accomplished,” said Austin as she pulled a photograph from an envelope.

The photo is a copy of a 1979 Sports Illustrated cover after she won her first U.S. Open. It shows her raising her arms in victory and the headline reads: “Tracy Austin Becomes the Youngest Winner.” She had Sports Illustrated send it recently because she didn’t think about getting one when she was younger.

“Do you know that I celebrated my first U.S. Open at McDonald’s? I still had my dress on from winning the Open and there I was, eating at McDonald’s.

“I realize now what winning the U.S. Open is. I really didn’t then.”

On a shelf in her parents’ home are more than 600 trophies that Austin won. One sticks out in her mind, though, because her brother John, whom she’s always been close to, was part of the victory.

“The most special win in my life was winning Wimbledon with my brother in 1980,” Austin said. “That really meant a lot to me.”

She remembers not being able to pick up her Associated Press award as female athlete of the year in 1979 because she was “too busy.”

“If I got an award like that now, I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’ll go!’ I’d go to Timbuktu to get something like that now.”

Perhaps she does miss the titles, awards and glory of victory, maybe enough to try for some more.

But Austin won’t talk about the possibility of a comeback. But Robert Landsdorp, her long-time coach, says she started training seriously this year.

“She started working hard about five months ago,” Landsdorp said. “But she wants to keep a low profile.

“She’s working in the gym to strengthen her body and she’s doing a lot of running. Before, there were no workouts in the gym and not much running, at least not like this.

“As far as her tennis goes, I think she’s looking just as good as ever. Her tenacity to hit ball after ball in the corner is incredible.

“I tell you, the way she hits that ball, not many girls on the tour can sustain that. She’s powerful on the ground and consistent.

“Now it’s just a matter of getting her body so strong that she can play two hours of solid tennis and not feel like she’s gone through the wringer the next day.”

Austin’s father says she is serious about possibly playing professional tennis again, but she doesn’t want to be pushed.

“She’ll do it mainly if she feels like it and when she feels like it,” he said. “She’s fit now for the first time in several years and she’s been doing intense workouts.”

Billie Jean King, who once said that Austin was afraid to come back, says it would be wonderful for women’s tennis if she did.

“I love it,” she said. “I’ve always felt that Tracy should come back.

“But I think she has to be prepared to go through a tough time. When you’re away from the game for that long, you forget every part of it. You forget how to play the big points and how tough all the traveling can be.”

King said that the only real change on the women’s tour Austin would have to face is the size of some of the players.

“They’re tall and very big now,” she said.

“But if she’s injury-free and has a good attitude, that shouldn’t matter. She just has to give herself at least a year and not expect immediate results.”

Whether Austin decides to play professionally or not, tennis probably will always be a part of her life, as fun if not as work.

“I admit that I’m enjoying tennis very much,” she said. “I’ll play tennis forever.”