CdM player not welcome at NBTC

NEWPORT BEACH — Corona del Mar High sophomore Cierra Gaytan-Leach played with junior Fabian Matthews in mixed doubles at the Roy Emerson Adoption Guild Classic tournament on Saturday.

But she probably won’t be back at the Newport Beach Tennis Club anytime soon following an incident that occurred a couple of weeks ago.

Gaytan-Leach, who is not a member of the club, had come to practice as a guest when she was asked to leave the facility, which is private. Her father, Rick Leach, who has maintained no relationship with Gaytan-Leach, is an instructor at NBTC.

Gaytan-Leach said she uses her life without a father as motivation in a story that appeared in the Daily Pilot Nov. 30.

Apparently, now there’s more separation.

Noel Gaytan, Cierra’s mother, said NBTC owner Steve Joyce asked Gaytan-Leach to leave the facility two weeks ago when Gaytan-Leach went there to practice as a guest. Joyce was on site at the tournament on Saturday but declined to comment on the situation.

“She’s a good tennis player and I wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors,” Joyce said. “Otherwise, I have no comment.”

Noel Gaytan said Joyce said he was trying to protect his members and that he’s a good friend of Leach.

“Like you have to protect your members from a 15-year-old girl,” Gaytan said. “I feel that this is already a very sensitive issue with Cierra and Rick. I didn’t feel like it was appropriate for [Joyce] to step in the middle of it. I definitely think he made more out of this than he should’ve. They both played at the Adoption Guild last year and there were no problems.”

Gaytan-Leach instead went to practice down the street at Corona del Mar High.

“They told us we had to go somewhere else, so we went somewhere else,” Gaytan-Leach said. “I do not appreciate that at all. I don’t really like this club that much for it, but it happens, I guess. I’ll be grown up soon enough, so I’ll be out of here.”

Noel Gaytan’s brother, Sal, said he came back to the club a day or two later to talk to Joyce. Sal Gaytan asked if she could play at NBTC as an invited guest and was told it was preferred that she did not play at the club.

“That’s what I had an issue with; I didn’t feel that was appropriate,” Sal Gaytan said. “I thought that if she’s a guest and she’s abiding by the rules, she should play. Just because her father is uncomfortable with it, that shouldn’t affect her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

Leach declined to comment when reached on his cell phone on Saturday evening.

Gaytan-Leach, 15, is an accomplished tournament player who has moved up to girls’ 18s competition. Last fall, she was also was a singles player for the Corona del Mar High girls’ tennis team, which finished 24-0 and won the CIF Southern Section Division I title.

Leach, 42, won five Grand Slam doubles titles and reached the No. 1 doubles ranking in 1990. He has been playing for the Newport Beach Breakers of World Team Tennis, and was re-drafted by the Breakers in March.

Among the students Leach coaches is Matthews, who won his second consecutive CIF Southern Section doubles title with Dustin Hladek on May 26.

“That doesn’t faze me at all,” Cierra Gaytan-Leach said. “Rick’s a good player. He was No. 1 in the world for awhile. [Fabian’s] improving, and he’s my partner, so it works for me. He can hit with him every day if he wants.

“[Leach] has a lot to offer on the tennis court. On the tennis court, he’s amazing. But, off the tennis court, he doesn’t have anything to offer me.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.