Two-Fisted Sister
Opponents can blame Maureen Diaz’s sister. If Lyn Diaz hadn’t tried tennis, then given it up, maybe her younger sister would never have taken up the sport. Instead, she brought her game to UC Irvine.
Or maybe they can blame her father. If he had bought her a proper racket, instead of letting her use one of his, maybe Diaz wouldn’t be that freshman with the vicious two-handed ground strokes.
Or maybe they can blame the Diaz family genes. If she had been taller, volleyball would have been her sport. Instead, she whips other players--quality players--on the tennis court.
Last Saturday, in her first college match, Diaz defeated USC’s Jewel Peterson, who’s No. 4 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. rankings.
“She is like a machine,” Irvine Coach Mike Edles said. “Not too many players can stay with her from the baseline. They just can’t hit with her. She wears them down.”
Just imagine what Diaz will be like as senior. She’s already ranked 79th after dispatching Stanford’s Keiko Tokuda, ranked 38th, and North Carolina’s Jennifer Radman, ranked 48th, in straight sets during the Riviera All-American tournament in October.
This has been coming for a while. Diaz came to Irvine ranked 22nd nationally in the girls’ under-18s and was fourth in Southern California.
Her destination after Irvine seems obvious.
“Ever since I was young, I wanted the status of being a professional player,” said Diaz, who played at Pasadena Mayfield High. “I would always kid around while playing with friends, ‘OK, this is match point for Wimbledon.’
“Steffi Graf is my model. I love her attitude on the court. She’s always focused, always on her feet. You can never tell if she’s winning or losing.”
But it’s not Graf whom Edles thinks about when he watches Diaz play.
“She plays that two-handed style, like Monica Seles,” Edles said. “She comes forehand and backhand with it. It gives her a lot of power.”
Graf? Seles? What is Diaz doing at Irvine with the Australian Open nearing its climax?
“I still have a long ways to go,” Diaz said. “After college, I’ll give the pro tour a try.”
Bad news for Anteater opponents.
“The first time I saw her play, she looked like a lot of other juniors,” Edles said. “Once I looked a little closer, I noticed the other players couldn’t stay with her. She grinds them down. They start getting a little panicky.”
This has been Diaz’s game since she first picked up a racket--her father’s--at age 10. She had some interest in the sport, having seen her sister try it for a year.
But Maureen Diaz liked volleyball. Then, two things happened.
It occurred to Diaz, who is 5 feet 4, that she was never going to be tall enough to be a volleyball player. And, her father asked her if she wouldn’t like to play a little tennis one day.
“I was just sitting around doing nothing, so I said, ‘Sure,’ ” Diaz said.
The racket handle was too large, so she gripped it with both hands. She rallied a little with dad and her life changed.
Armando Diaz, her father, is a recreational player, and his passion for the sport caught hold with his daughter. She began taking lessons and played in her first tournament four months later.
Six months after that, she won her first tournament and there was no turning back.
“I was never forced to play,” Diaz said. “ I loved it. I love to practice. I would practice three hours a day, just working on my baseline game.”
It has paid off. Diaz reached the final of the prestigious Easter Bowl tournament in 1998 and was among eight girls selected to play in an International Tennis Federation tournament in Italy, where she reached the quarterfinals.
USC and California recruited her, but Diaz chose Irvine.
The Anteaters, ranked 72nd by the ITA, are 0-2 after losing to No. 10 USC and No. 8 Pepperdine last weekend. But the winless record can’t be pinned on Diaz, who accounted for both Irvine points in the 7-2 loss to USC, beating Peterson and teaming with Natalie Exon to win at No. 2 doubles.
In the end, Diaz’s opponents can only blame themselves. After all, they chose to play tennis.
