TENNIS / OJAI INVITATIONAL : Pressure Is on This Talented Teen

He is 6 feet 5, he hits serves that leave vapor trails, he leaves Monday for a tournament in Mexico, he will play three more tournaments in Europe in June and he is 14 years old.

For Geoff Abrams of Newport Beach, the world is a fuzzy tennis ball. That is if you don’t count his math and science classes at Newport Harbor High, which have sort of occupied some of his time lately, too.

But there is some responsibility that goes along with being the reigning 14-year-old national tennis champion and the top player in the 16 age group in the Southern California Section of the USTA.

Do the names of recent Southern California juniors such as Pete Sampras and Michael Chang mean anything?

“Even if I was the first one out of Southern California, which I’m not, there would still be pressure because I’m on the junior national team and you’re supposed to win,” Abrams said.

So on Saturday, Abrams won. He gained the 16 age-group singles title at the Ojai Invitational with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Joseph Gilbert of Fullerton, who is a head shorter than Abrams.

At least Gilbert didn’t resort to what the parents of some of Abrams’ opponents did when Abrams was 11. They demanded to see Abrams’ birth certificate.

“I had all kinds of parents calling me,” said Jim Hillman, head of the Southern California Tennis Assn.’s junior program. “Sure enough, he was 11. He was just tall.”

The son of Nancy, a travel consultant, and Gil, an engineer, Abrams already stood 6 feet at 11. Now, three weeks short of his 15th birthday, Abrams is showing he may be capable of fulfilling some lofty expectations as next in the Sampras-Chang line of succession.

Abrams is coached by Phil Dent, but the USTA junior coaching staff headed by Nick Saviano will take over when Abrams heads for Mexico for the World Youth Cup and in June when he travels to junior events in Germany, Italy and France.

After that, Abrams’ schedule really gets hectic, especially for a 15-year-old: the national clay courts, the national hard courts, a tournament in Maryland, the Canadian Open juniors and the U.S. Open juniors, where Abrams will make his junior Grand Slam debut.

“There will be so many people there and I know the other guys on the team,” Abrams said. “The ones who were in Australia got to meet Courier and Sampras in the players’ lounge.”

If things work out, Abrams may be meeting them on the court fairly soon. But first there is his junior career, then maybe college at Stanford, then the pros.

“I went to be the best,” he said.

Tennis Notes

Another member of the junior national team playing at Ojai, 14-year-old Amanda Basica of Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula High, leaves Monday for Europe to play tournaments in which she hopes to pick up enough points to play in both the French Open and Wimbledon junior tournaments. . . . In Pacific 10 Conference singles championship matches today, Fritz Bissel of UCLA plays David Ekerot of USC and Pam Nelson of California plays defending champion Alix Creek of Arizona.