Sports
Thursday, June 29, 1995 Page 9
Olympic v-ball fest puts four Huskers on court
By Tony West
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska women’s volleyball team will
be well represented at the U.S. Olympic Festi
val, which will be held at Boulder, Colo., from
July 21-30.
Four Comhuskers will be representing Ne- <
braska at the festival.
Florida and Stanford are the only other uni- '
versities to be represented by four athletes in the
volleyball competition.
Senior outside hitter Billie Winsett will re- j
turn to the festival for the third straight summer, j
Christy Johnson also returns from last summer’s
festival.
Senior Allison Weston, who has toured with
the U.S. national team for the past two summers,
and sophomore Lisa Reitsma will make their
first appearances in the festival.
Winsett said that having this many Huskers j
in the festival is a very positive quality for the |
program at Nebraska. [
“It shows a lot about the mentality and qual
ity of players we have here,” she said.
The 48 players for the volleyball festival
were selected among more than 400 athletes j
who participated in four tryouts conducted over !
a six-week period.
-Winsett said the experience is also very *
valuable in preparing for the following season.
“It gets you prepared early,” she said. “And
it also gives you another experience to play in
the summer in a game-like situation.”
However, the experience isn’t always just
fun and games, Winsett said.
“It takes a lot of mental discipline,” Winsett
said. “It’s a very intense experience because
you have to be perfect on every play.”
But despite tne added pressure of playing for
a chance to be part of the U.S. team at the 1996
Olympics in Atlanta, Winsett said she was go
ing to take things as they come.
“It’s a lot of stress but I’ll try tojust enjoy the
experience,” Winsett said. “If the opportunity
to play in the Olympics comes, I’ll take it.”
James Mehslina/DN'
Graf, Agassi take kids to (Wimbledon) court—and win
By STEVE WILSTEIN
AP tennis Writer
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) - Top seeds
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf dismissed a couple
of skinny teen-agers with dreams bigger than
their serves Tuesday, a Tasmanian bedeviled by
double-faults and a Martina who is no
Navratilova.
Agassi, the 1992 champion, benefited from
17 double-faults by 19-year-old Andrew Painter
in a 6-2,6-2,6-1 rout that took just 77 minutes,
barely enough time for them to get red in the
broiling sun on another blue-sky day at
Wimbledon.
“You don’t really have sympathy when you ’re
out there,” Agassi said after watching Painter,
ranked No. 530, double-fault six times in one
game and four straight times in another before
shriveling away in embarrassment.
Playing a match for the first time since strain
. ing a hip muscle in the French Open earlier this
month, Agassi showed how ready he was on the
second point of the match. He drilled a back
hand return up the middle that Painter lunged
for and missed while skidding to the ground.
From that moment, it was if Agassi were out
there to take target practice in his new all-white
outfit: knee-length shorts, baggy shirt and a
bandana to protect his closely-cropped head
from the sun. On match point, with Painter
stranded at the net, Agassi rushed in on a short
ball and mercilessly drilled a forehand passing
shot close to Painter’s body for a winner.
“I’ve grown to love it here,” Agassi said after
bowingto the whistling and cheeringcrowd and
waving to all comers of the Court One stadium.
“I enjoy being a part of history here ... Every
time I come back here, the emotion and the
excitement seems to bring out some great ten
ms.
Graf, a five-time Wimbledon winner un
beaten in 26 matches this year, won 6-3,6-1 in
49 minutes and made 14-year-old Martina Hingis
look as if she belonged back in the juniors. It
wasn’t just Centre Court experience that made
the difference. At 26, Graf simply was faster,
stronger and more consistent than the 18th
ranked Hingis, who held serve only in the first
game of the match.
“I don’t have to leave in panic, and I don’t
have to clean up the house, like I did last year,”
Graf said after avoiding the first-round trap that
snared her a year ago when she fell to Lori
McNeil. McNeil made the early exit this time,
losing to No. 14 Naoko Sawamatsu, 4-6,6-0,6
3.
Graf was gracious in her appraisal of Hingis,
who was named after Navratilova and won the
Wimbledon girls title last year a few months
before turning professional.
“It’s very surprising that she’s so calm and
collected on the court, and she plays intelligent
tennis,” Graf said. “At 14, that’s not very often
to see. So I think she has a big future.
“She will have to deliver more with her
serve, because I could always take advantage of
that.”
Hingis had hopes of making a big splash in
her debut in the women’s tournament, but her
grand moment on Centre Court passed all too
fast.
“Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t
have time to react,” Hingis said, referring not
only to their rushed entrance onto the court after
an unusually short men’s match, but the speed
of Grafs shots. “I just was hoping that she
would make some mistakes.
“It was very hard for me, especially on Cen
tre Court against Steffi, because it’s like a
carpet and one slides a lot on it.”
Told that Graf said a Wimbledon title might
loom in Hingis’ future in a few years, the Swiss
teen responded with a smile: “I do hope that
she’s right.”
Graf will play with the original Martina, a
nine-time Wimbledon champion, when they
team up Wednesday in doubles. Navratilova, a
finalist last year, is retired from singles compe
tition and is spending most of this tournament in
the broadcast booth for HBO.
On a day when seven former Wimbledon
champions strode the courts, twoofthem lost—
ninth-seeded Michael Stich and unseeded Pat
Cash.
Stich, the 1991 winner who also lost in the
first round last year, fell to 27th-ranked Jacco
Eltingh, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1. Cash, who won in
1987 and entered as a wild card this year, quit
with an ankle injury after losing the first set 7
6 (8-6) to No. 176 Dick Norman.
Other former champions fared better, with
No. 3 Boris Becker beating Emilio Alvarez 6-2,
6-2, 6-1; No. 13 Stefan Ed berg beating Oscar
Martinez 6-3,6-3,6-4; and defending women’s
champ Conchita Martinez beating Asa Carlsson
6-1,6-1.