Damion eyeing future after loss

FOUNTAIN VALLEY ? A berth in Sunday’s girls’ 18 doubles final and a shiny runner-up trophy were reason enough to pose for post-match pictures. But the real prize Corona del Mar resident Jill Damion took away from the 104th annual Southern California Junior Tennis Sectionals at the Los Caballeros Racquet and Sports Club, is piece of mind.

“This was promising,” said Damion, who teamed with Laguna Niguel’s Sarah Fansler to drop a 6-1, 7-5 title match to Lyndsay Kinstler of Laguna Beach and Alison Ramos of Carson. “It’s good to know I can still play tennis in college.”

A collegiate tennis career ? like the one enjoyed by older sister Leslie Damion, who graduated last week from UC Santa Barbara ? suddenly became a question mark when Jill Damion hurt her right shoulder about this time last summer.

“My shoulder was bothering me at last year’s sectionals,” Damion said. “Then, in the next tournament I played, I reached back to serve and something just popped.”

The diagnosis was a torn rotator cuff, three words a tennis player never wants to hear.

“They say it’s something I’ll have to deal with my whole career,” said Damion, who was CdM High’s No. 1 singles player as a sophomore in 2004. That same season, she and teammate Ali Walters won the Pacific Coast League doubles crown and advanced to the CIF Southern Section doubles semifinals.

Damion elected not to have surgery. Instead, she underwent exhaustive rehabilitation procedures designed to strengthen the muscles around the injured area.

This meant three trips a week to an Anaheim facility. It also meant she was sidelined for nearly the entire high school season last fall. She made a doubles appearance in the Sea Kings’ CIF Southern Section Division II semifinal loss, during which she was forced to serve underhanded.

After the aforementioned high school cameo as a junior, Damion refrained from competitive tennis until March. But playing singles and doubles in this event, which amounted to five doubles matches and three singles matches in about a week, put the injured shoulder to its stiffest test yet.

“It was nice to play eight matches and not have it break down,” Damion said after Sunday’s final. “Unless something bad happens, it looks like I’ll be able to play tennis in college.”

Pat Damion, Jill’s mother, estimated Jill has regained about 85% of her physical strength since the injury. But Pat said her daughter’s confidence level is far from what it was before she got hurt.

“She has lost the confidence she had when she was playing so well last summer,” Pat Damion said. “But the one thing the [injury-imposed layoff] did do was make her realize how much she enjoys tennis and how much playing is a part of her life.”

Jill Damion, who termed Sunday’s final the worst match she and the USC-bound Fansler played in the tournament, agreed that confidence is still an issue.

“I was playing really well right before I got hurt, so it’s hard to assess where I am, in terms of coming back,” said Damion, who lost in the round of 16 in the 18 singles draw.

Damion refused to use fatigue as an excuse for what she deemed a subpar performance Sunday.

“I’m kind of tired and worn out, but I just didn’t play very well,” she said. “We started slow. We got a little better in the second game, but obviously not enough.”

Kinstler, who helped lead Laguna Beach to the CIF Southern Section Division I team title last fall, and Ramos, who did the same for Troy High in CIF Division II, played like the top-seed against their unseeded foes.

Kinstler and Ramos used three service breaks to dominate the first set.

In the second set, Damion held twice to help her team keep it close. But Fansler ? with whom Damion has never played a competitive event, though they have known each other since they were 12 ? failed to hold her serve, which proved too much to overcome. Fansler was broken all five times she served in the match.

In other action Sunday, Newport Beach resident Joseph DiGiulio was defeated by Nathan Lewis of Irvine, 7-6, 6-2, in the third-place match of the boys’ 12 singles.

In the girls’ 16 singles third-place match, Newport Beach’s Walters lost to Amelia Herring of Carslbad, 7-5, 6-2.