Rehe Captures Florida Federal Open, 11/10/85

Organizers of the Florida Federal Tennis Open knew they were going to have a challenge marketing the event in 1985.

Some of the biggest names in women’s tennis had all politely declined to enter the tournament. Martina Navratilova – winner of the 1983 Florida Federal – skipped the 1984 event and had no intention of returning in 1985. Other top-ranked women skipping the tournament were Pam Shriver, Hana Mandlikova, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, Zina Garrison, Helena Sukova, and Manuela Maleeva.

A rising star on the women’s tour, 16-year-old German Steffi Graf, likewise withdrew prior to the start of the tournament.

Then, just a week before the tournament began, the last of the dominoes fell: Chris Evert Lloyd. The winner of 18 Grand Slam events withdrew from the tournament in Largo due to a knee injury and the demands of a heavy travel schedule.

“I’m disappointed,” tournament co-director Barry Siegel said. “I certainly won’t lie about it.”

Still, Siegel and others had reasons to be enthusiastic about the upcoming tournament. Being held for the first time at the Bardmoor Country Club in Largo, the tournament lineup may not have been big on star-power, but it was loaded with fresh talent.

“It’s a good field,” Siegel said. “The best way to describe the field is that these are the top players of the future of women’s tennis.”

Among these in the field were Largo’s own Bonnie Gadusek, the tournament’s top seed and the 10th ranked player in the world. Michelle Torres, the winner of the 1984 Florida Federal Open, returned to defend her title, and Kathy Rinaldi, who in August beat Graf to capture the A&P Tennis Classic championship in Mahawh, New Jersey, was the 11th ranked player in the world and one of the top young players in the game.

Carling Bassett, a finalist the previous year, returned to the tournament, and a promising pair of 14-year-olds -- Gabriela Sabatini and Mary Jo Fernandez – were each considered rising stars.

First-round play opened on November 4, as the top-seeded Gadusek earned a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Caroline Kuhlman. Seventh-seeded Terry Phelps ousted Gabriella Mosca, a 15-year-old Argentinian who took Chris Evert Lloyd’s place in the draw. It took Phelps only 38 minutes to overwhelm Mosca, who only won two points the entire second set. Pam Casale, one of the fiercest competitors on the tour, made quick work of the up-and-coming Fernandez, 6-2, 6-3.
While Bassett and Sabatini both won their first round matches, two other top seeds were not so lucky.

Gadusek, the No. 1 seed, suffered a humiliating defeat to Lisa Bonder, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1. Gadusek credited her problems to effect of the damp weather on her strings.

“My strings were getting loose because of the dampness and humidity,” she said. “I lost feeling in the ball and I didn’t get it back.”

Bonder, for her part, almost didn’t finish the match.

“I was nervous and cold, and I think I ate too many raisins," she said. “I almost died right there on the court.”

Rinaldi, the No. 2 seed, never even set foot on the court, as she withdrew due to a severe case of tonsillitis. Her last-minute replacement, Amy Holton of Sarasota, went down 6-1, 6-1 to the defending champion Torres.

Sabatini, Bassett, Torres and Casale all breezed through the second round to set up some interesting quarterfinals match-ups.

Casale fell to the No. 3 seed Sabatini 6-0, 6-1, in a 52-minute match, and Bassett took care of unseeded Grace Kim, 6-2, 7-5. The Lisa Bonder-Ann White match, however, proved to be one of the more interesting matches in the tournament.

Bonder accused White, who won the match 6-2, 6-4, of using intimidation tactics during a let-call at 2-2 of the first set. White argued for two minutes that there was no let on her serve. The delay seemingly zapped Bonder’s focus.

“Anne’s very intimidating,” she said. “She gave me some mean stares and she growled. The whole thing was intimidating.”

An exhausted Michelle Torres – who the day before needed three hours to get past her opponent – fell meekly to Stephanie Rehe, 6-1, 6-2.

In the semis, Rehe continued her winning ways with a gutsy 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Bassett. The 16-year-old Rehe, who turned pro just two months earlier, wrestled the match away from Bassett by overcoming nine game-points trailing 2-1 in the third set. The game lasted 22 minutes and took 32 points to settle, ending when Bassett pushed a volley long.
Sabatini cruised into the finals with a 6-1, 6-2 dismantling of White.

“I was embarrassingly bad today,” White said. “When things go bad, they go really bad.”

Although the crowd may have preferred seeing Sabatini play her doubles partner Bassett in the finals, Rehe’s victory set up an extremely compelling final between two players who had just turned pro in 1985. The two delivered a thrilling finale to the tournament in front of a crowd of 5,176.

Trailing the 12th ranked player in the world by a score of 4-2 in the third set, Rehe rallied to win three straight games and held on to capture the match 6-4, 6-7, 7-5. Sabatini admitted to playing nervous, and it showed, as she sprayed an uncharacteristic 48 unforced errors.

Despite the lack of “big name” talent, the tournament proved to be a resounding success. Nearly 26,000 people attended the tournament, 5,000 more than had attended the previous year at the Innisbrook Resort.

As for Rehe and Sabatini, what could have been the start of a great rivalry never materialized. Although Rehe climbed to as high as No. 10 in the world by 1989, a serious back injury put her on the shelf for a year, and just eight years after her victory in Largo, she would be out of the game permanently.

Sabatini, on the other hand, became one of the best players of her generation. The winner of the 1990 U.S. Open, Sabatini earned induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2006.

Florida Federal Open, 10/14/84

On the morning of October 14, 1984, Michelle Torres fought off the nerves one might feel going into a tournament final. Instead of being anxious, Torres felt relaxed and confident of her chances in the championship of the Florida Federal Tennis Open in Tarpon Springs.

“There was no pressure,” she recalls. “I felt like I was out there having fun and trying to do my best.”

At just 17 years old and in her fourth week on the pro tour, no one could have faulted Torres for butterflies in her stomach. Instead, she delivered a steely performance that would make even the unflappable Chris Evert – the player after whom she patterned her game – quite proud.

As she geared up for the match, Torres found herself a long way from home. Still a senior at New Trier West High School in Northfield, Ill., Torres straddled the line somewhere between being a carefree high school student and serious touring pro.

"When a tournament ended, I went back to my high school," she says. "Since I was only on the tour part-time, it didn’t feel like a job. It was more of a thing on the side for fun.”

She’d prepared herself for life as a pro, however, by spending two weeks at a time in Bradenton the previous year training with tennis guru Nick Bollettieri. Already a state high school tennis champion, and at one time ranked as the 10th best junior player in the world, Torres felt like she belonged on the tour.

The previous month, she made waves in Ft. Lauderdale at the Maybelline Classic, making it all the way to the finals. Her opponent in that match: Martina Navratilova. A young player new to the tour could not have drawn a less-favorable matchup. From 1982-84, Navratilova dropped a total of six singles matches during one of the most dominant stretches by any athlete in any sport.

Torres left Ft. Lauderdale a witness to that dominance, falling 6-1, 6-0.

“That was an embarrassing experience,” she says. “I had not played her before and wasn’t prepared for her style. She had this left-handed kick serve which I wasn’t used to, and her serve-and-volley game the way she’d come into net behind these amazing drop shots. I wasn’t disappointed though, because overall I had a great week. I just felt bad because people had paid to come see the finals and it would have been nice to make a match out of it.”

Wiser for the experience, she entered the Florida Federal with as good a chance as anyone in the draw. Navratilova, the defending champion, declined to play in the tournament due to scheduling conflicts. Hana Mandikova, a winner of four Grand Slams and the fourth-ranked woman in the world, presented the biggest challenge to Torres’ chances.

Torres opened the tournament with victories over Ann Henrickson and Mary Lou Piatek to set up a quarterfinal match with No. 3 seed and Largo resident Bonnie Gadusek. Torres made short work of Gadusek in the quarters, 6-3, 6-4, to avenge a defeat earlier in the year at the Virginia Slims of Florida.

Tournament favorite Mandikova, suffering from flu symptoms and a 102-degree temperature, dropped the first set in her quarterfinal against Camille Benjamin before retiring from the match. So instead of facing Mandikova, Torres drew the unseeded Benjamin in the semifinals.

Benjamin was no pushover, however, and raced to a 4-3 advantage in the first set. Torres rallied back to take the first set 6-4, then held on in a thrilling second-set tiebreaker, winning 7-6 (7-2).

That set up a showdown with fellow 17 year old and recent U.S. Open semifinalist Carling Bassett. Bassett, the daughter of Tampa Bay Bandits managing partner John Bassett, came into the tournament ranked 10th in the world and riding a high from her recent run of success in New York. The two Bollettieri proteges were each seeking their first pro tournament titles.

"I had played Carling in practice, and was familiar with her game, as she was with mine," Torres recalls. "Going into the finals, you feel comfortable and aren't intimidated with what you're going to see.

Carling didn't play very well in the first set. She made a lot of errors, which was great for me because I got an easy set and was halfway to winning the match. All I had to do was hang in there. She played a lot better in the second set, but I think she was just nervous that day. I stayed mentally tough and remember eeking it out in a 2nd set tiebreaker."

Torres captured the match 6-1, 7-6 (7-4) along with a check for $28,000. She vividly remembers the trophy presentation, which included the requisite giant check, and for some reason, a photo op of her holding a chimpanzee.

"I asked my mom if I could buy it, but she said no," Torres recalls with a laugh.

Her triumph in Tarpon Springs was the sole championship during a career in which Torres rose to as high as No. 18 in the world before retiring in 1989.

Torres, now known by her married name of Michelle Casati, remains active in tennis as an instructor in Northbrook, Illinois. The passage of time, however, has done little to dull her memories of that week a quarter-century ago.

"I think about it now and then because it was my only win on the pro tour," she says. "As a teen, you really don't take it in as much as when you're older and have the benefit of time to appreciate it."

Martina Wins at Innisbrook, 10/16/83

In 1983, Martina Navratilova had one of the greatest single seasons in any sport. That year, she dominated women's tennis with an astonishing record of 86-1, winning 16 of 17 tournaments.

Near the end of that record season, Navratilova played at the Florida Federal Tennis Open, seeking her second tournament championship there in three years. The tournament was from Oct. 10-16, 1983, and held for the first time at the Innisbrook Resort in Tarpon Springs after seven years at East Lake Woodlands in Oldsmar.

While singer Bonnie Tyler owned the October airwaves with her hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart," Navratilova totally eclipsed all others in her sport. To say she arrived in the Tampa Bay area on a roll is an understatement.

Navratilova entered the tournament having won 67 of 68 matches and capturing every tournament she entered except the French Open, where she lost in the fourth round to Kathy Horvath. The Florida Federal was her first tournament since early September, when she won the U.S. Open for the first time, finally completing her Grand Slam resume.

Navratilova had such an air of invincibility that many opponents admitted nobody on the tour could even challenge her. She didn't seem to disagree, saying, "If I don't beat myself, I don't think anyone else can beat me."

Prior to the U.S. Open final against Chris Evert, Pam Shriver said, "Chris is the only one who hasn't conceded to Martina's invincibility. If she gets blown out (in the final), all hope is gone." Navratilova routed Evert, 6-1, 6-3.

Winning the U.S. Open was a career turning-point for Navratilova, who finally shed the stigma of never winning in New York. "There was no monkey on my back," she said. "It was an orangutan."

Navratilova's week in Florida got off to a slow start, however, as her first round match against Peanut Louie was delayed by rain. The postponement was the tournament's first since a quarterfinal match in 1980 featuring Tracy Austin. In this case, the delay must have only served to make Louie feel like a prisoner on death row awaiting a stay of execution that would never come.

Navratilova toyed with Louie in a 6-1, 6-1 blowout that took only 43 minutes. Most cruelly of all, Navratilova decided to unleash her newest weapon – a kick serve -- against the severely overmatched Louie. "It's like a pitcher with new pitch," Navratilova said.

Her next opponent was Wendy White, who had made her mark as a collegiate champion at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. White played admirably and fared significantly better than Louie, keeping Navratilova on the court for 85 minutes. Along the way, she managed to register three service breaks in a 6-3, 6-2 loss. After the match, Navratilova praised her opponents' performance. "

That's one of the best matches anyone's played against me in a long time," she said.

Another rain delay postponed Navratilova's quarterfinal match against Bonnie Gadusek by a day. The seventh-seeded Gadusek -- a resident of nearby Largo -- put up a strong fight early, battling to even up the score at 5-5 in the first set by applying pressure on Navratilova. "

She had a plan and she knew what she wanted to do," Navratilova said. "She came in (to the net) when I didn't expect her to."

As expected, however, Navratilova regained control, winning the first set 7-5, and put away the match, 6-3, in the second set.

Yet another rain delay forced Navratilova into double-duty Saturday with a semifinal showdown against Zina Garrison. Showing no signs of fatigue, she easily handled Garrison, 6-3, 6-2. Waiting for her in the finals was friend and doubles partner Pam Shriver, who had lost 16 of 19 career matches against Navratilova.

Despite their close relationship, Shriver struggled to find an edge against her opponent. Her strategy featured a serve-and-volley attack, which seemed to play into Navratilova's hands. Taking advantage of the slow clay surface, Navratilova had ample time to send top-spin backhand winners past the charging Shriver. Her service game didn't fare much better in the second set, as she dropped all but one point over the course of four service games.

Shriver's best move of the day came after the 6-3, 6-2 defeat, when she jokingly dumped ice cubes down the back of Navratilova's shirt during the trophy presentation. Fittingly, the friends teamed up later in the day to win the doubles title with a 6-0, 6-1 pasting of Gadusek and White to wrap up the tournament.

These titles would be Navratilova's last at the Florida Federal Open, as 1983 marked the final appearance of her Hall of Fame career at the tournament.