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16 • The Red and Black / Finals • Monday, March 19, 1990
Balfour
COLLEGE CLASS RINGS
Art Otwell
5385 Five Forks Trickum Road
Suite 200-C
Stone Mountain, Georgia 30087
Telephone:404/925-2832
or
University Bookstore
404/542-3171
ORDER: Tuesday, March 20th
Thursday, March 21th
UGA BOOKSTORE
SPORTS
Top Tennis Dog isn’t perfect
Randy
Walker
“Hey Randy, How did the
Georgia men’s tennis team do yes
terday?"
“They won."
"How did Al Parker do? 9
"He lost. 9
"He lost! What's the matter? He
must not be so good. 9
I can’t tell you how many times I
have to go through the same ritual
of explaining why Georgia’s top
Tennis Dog doesn’t win every
match. And here I go again.
In late January of 1988, Al sus
tained a severe back iinjury which
threatened his career. He rehabili
tated and went on to reach the
semifinals of the NCAAs, but his
back was still a problem. He still
has to nurse himself by excessive
stretching and icing his back and
spending almost as much time in
the training room as on the courts
at Henrv Feild Stadium.
In last year’s NCAA team tour
nament, Parker suffered back
spasms in his matches against
Mark Kaplan of UC-Irvine and
Clint Barducci of TCU — both of
which he lost. This season, in
losing both his matches at the
American Airlines Team Classic,
Al was plagued with a sore arm, in
direct correlation with the nerve
iryury in his back.
The Claxton, Ga., native felt
much better when winning the
SEC Indoors the next week, but at
the USTA—ITCA National Team
tournament Parker felt sharp
pains shooting through his arm
and into his fingers. The pains
were again attributed directly to
his injury and was a major factor in
his losses to both David Wells-Roth
of Pepperdine and John Stimpson
of Alabama. The pain became so
great that he could not compete
against Cal-Berkeley.
Against Jens Skjoedt of Georgia
Tech, while his back was still both
ering him, a bad case of the flu did
not help his chances, even against
a Techster.
About a week ago at a legends
tennis tournament in my home
town of New Canaan, Conn., my
dearest mother chatted with Stan
Smith, who coached Al the last
three summers as the coach of the
USTA National Team. The tall,
balding former U.S. Open cham
pion cited Parker’s susceptibility to
injuries as a mcyor stumbling block
in his tennis career.
Many people don’t realize that
tennis is a very physically-de
manding sport. A football game is
three hours of on-and-off play. A
basketball game is two hours. A
tennis dual-match lasts up to five
hours and that is almost contin
uous play. No halftime, no
timeouts, no substitutions. The
UGA tennis team has very de
manding practices every day for
three hours from early September
until the last week in May.
Coming out of high school, Al
was the best American Junior
tennis player with 25 national ti
tles to his credit. College tennis, es
pecially in the last few years, has
featured the world’s best juniors.
Jose-Luis Noriega, who Al lost to at
Al Parker: Emotes frustra
tion in recent match
the Dupont Clay Court
Championships, has played with
the Peruvian Davis Cup team (the
same team who Jay Berger and
Andre Agassi played against two
years ago). Conny Falk, a 24-year-
old sophomore from Miami who
edged Parker in three sets a week
Please See PARKER, Page 24
Tennis team’s own Jekyll & Hyde
Murphy Jensen: Jekyll &
Hyde of tennis team
By RANDY WALKER
Sports Writer
Murphy Jensen stands at the
baseline at Henry Feild Stadium
court No.l and works on his bullet
first serve. A scruffy, old visor
covers his boyish face as his
brownish-blond hair flows over the
visor like the hanging gardens of
Babylon.
The visor is a symbolic thing,”
Jensen said with a straight face
looking into the rows of seats in the
bleachers. “Obviously it keeps the
sun out of my eyes, but it resem
bles what I am and what Fm trying
to do and that’s stay cool and keep
the heat out of my face. It also
shields me from all the pressures
from all the players across the
country trying to beat me.”
After his comment, Jensen
couldn’t help but crack a faint
smile. After all, it’s before the
Georgia men’s tennis team practice
and he doesn’t need to be serious
until he hits that first ball. But
when asked why he left the Uni
versity of Southern California last
year to play tennis for coach
Manuel Diaz’s Dogs, Jensen wipes
the smirk off his face and drasti
cally changes from absurdity to
deep seriousness.
“Everyone at USC was out for
themselves,” he said. There were
a lot of little groups of guys prac
ticing and hanging out together.
We didn’t travel to tournaments to
gether. You have to be able to live,
eat, breathe, spit, and hang to
gether and after a while you be
come like a happy family.
“I really love playing for
Georgia. Fm not just on a team of
tennis players, but I’m on a team of
friends and each and every one of
us get along together on and off the
court. We’re not just looking out for
ourselves. We’re playing on a team.
I’m just trying to errioy team
tennis, which I was unable to do at
USC.”
While Jensen isn’t concentrating
on the seriousness of competition
or practice, he’s usually found
raising up some sort of whimiscal
prank or spreading his fun
amongest teammates.
“He’s got a very energetic and
outgoing personality," Diaz said.
“You always want to have people
like him on the team. He’s very
easily motivated and self-driven.
You just kind of wind up Murphy
and he goes.”
Tve got a sort of a Dr. Jeckyll
and Mr. Hyde syndrome," Jensen
said. “Sometimes I get out of con
trol and I don’t even know what the
day of the week it is. I think for me,
I nave to be a more laid back
person. I reserve the energy for the
team instead of saving the energy
for the beach surfing.”
While dealing with the rough
Pacific surf at USC, Murphy was
mainly making a name for himself
as a doubles specialist under the
tutelege of Trojan head coach Dick
Leach. But while the USC program
has developed some of the best
doubles players in the world, such
as Stan Smith, Bob Lutz and Rick
Leach, Jensen wanted to shy away
from his notriety as a doubles
guru.
Tve always been really good in
singles, but it’s just a matter of
putting my mind to it and focusing
in on what I really need to do,” said
Please See JENSEN. Pi*e 19