DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997                TAG: 9704080480

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON

                                            LENGTH:   75 lines

TENNIS ANYONE? REQUIREMENT: NEED A REALLY GOOD OPPONENT

If this area had more good, young tennis players, it would boast more good, young tennis players.

How's that for impenetrable logic? It's also a chicken-and-egg riddle. Think about it. For an area of temperate climate and nearly year-round playing conditions, we don't pump out the kind of top-notch tennis prodigies who go on to major college scholarships or the pro tour - not that either of those places are easily reached.

Tennis players, athletes in general, thrive when there is plenty of comparable competition around to play and improve against. But what comes first, the tough players or the tough competition?

Ryan Davidson, 17, and Michael Duquette, 15, haven't thought much about that big picture. What they know is that they are here now, as the best junior players on the Southside and two of the best in the mid-Atlantic region, which includes Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Washington D.C.

They also know too well that on days that they don't train against each other at the Virginia Beach Tennis and Country Club, there aren't many alternatives, of any age.

Their situation is part of a national decline in junior tennis that has the sport's mavens in a dither. Foreign players who train at national training centers in their countries or flock to private academies in the United States are dominating junior tennis.

They also are flooding U.S. college programs to the extent that there is sentiment to restrict to 50 percent the number of scholarships that can go to foreign-born players.

Still, you can't say the local guys are doing half-bad. Davidson, a junior at Cox, was ranked No. 1 in the mid-Atlantic's 16-and-under division last year. Duquette, a sophomore at Norfolk Academy, was No. 3 in the same group, and in last week's prestigious Easter Bowl national tournament in Florida, he advanced to the quarterfinals before being eliminated.

Both hope to net scholarships to big-time tennis schools. After that, both say they'd like to go pro, aware as they are of the huge odds against anybody making a living as a playing professional.

But can they reach those goals from here? Or is packing off to a tennis academy and giving their lives over to the game their only chance?

``I don't think I'm going to move,'' says Duquette, who lives in Virginia Beach. ``I like it here.''

After moving from Charleston, S.C. two years ago, Davidson says he likes it here, too. He learned tennis in Charleston's busy and successful junior programs and finished third in the state last year for Cox.

He isn't playing high school tennis this season, though, and says he is considering graduating early from Cox and spending a year at an academy in Jacksonville, Fla. run by former pro Brian Gottfried to get more exposure to colleges.

Now that major programs are infiltrated by so many foreign players, Davidson says, ``if you're not in the top 30 in the country, you can't get a scholarship.''

That's tough, even in these leaner days in the U.S.

``You watch Michael and Ryan and people go, `Wow, aren't they good, are they gonna go pro?' '' says Bob Delgado, a pro at the Virginia Beach club. ``Well, you could be good in city, but then you've got to go to your section. Then you go national. Then the world. And our juniors are getting killed right now.''

It's just as lean here on the female side. Mily Kannarkat, a First Colonial junior and two-time state champion, is by far the area's best player, ranked second among 16-and-under girls last year in the mid-Atlantic.

``But the next level under her drops tremendously,'' says the Virginia Beach club's Sugie Jarrett. ``She could get a biggie scholarship, but she's not done well nationally. That's where the big schools start picking you.''

It's just that those pickings are getting too few and far between for those who care about American tennis. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

GARY C. KNAPP

Ryan Davidson, left, and Michael Duquette are the best junior

players on the Southside and two of the best in the mid-Atlantic

region

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu