Edelstein

Jennifer Hellier and Andrew Porter represented the new breed of young singles champions yesterday in the Anne Arundel County tennis tournament finals.And veteran standouts Lindsay Carlson, Matt Hanna and Howie Edelstein strutted their stuff once again in doubles competition at Chesapeake High.Hellier, a Broadneck sophomore, polished off Severna Park's Nancy Turnblacer, 6-2, 6-3, to win the girls singles title and immediately draw comparisons to former Annapolis great Meghan Cornwall, who put together a 110-2 career record from 1993 to 1996.

Six months after the head of the state Public Service Commission summarily fired five of the agency's professionals, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge has ruled the chairman lacked authority to fire one of the employees and ordered her reinstated. Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan said in an oral ruling that Kenneth D. Schisler, chairman of the agency that regulates Maryland's utilities, acted improperly when he fired Chrys Wilson, the agency's former manager of external relations, then denied her appeal, without consulting the other commissioners.

A week after a Baltimore Circuit Court judge ruled that a former Maryland Public Service Commission employee was wrongly fired by the PSC chairman and ordered her reinstated, two more former PSC employees have filed suit in hopes of winning back their jobs. Blaine L. Keener, the PSC's former chief engineer, and Randy M. Allen, the commission's former chief auditor, claim in a lawsuit filed yesterday that Chairman Kenneth D. Schisler lacked authority to fire them and did so for political reasons.

On tonight's House, the cranky doctor finally gets a patient he can relate to. In this new episode, House (Hugh Laurie) and his team try to figure out what's wrong with a man suffering from chronic pain - something House has lived with for years. No word on whether the patient is also an insufferable jerk. Meanwhile, Foreman and Thirteen (Omar Epps and Olivia Wilde) deal with their budding relationship, and Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) gets a lesson in juggling work and parenthood. The medical mystery show now in its fifth season celebrates its 100 episode next month.

Food and fisticuffs were the main features at Fight for a Cure. Some 430 boxing fans gathered at the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor for cocktails, dinner and seven professional matches -- raising $5,000 for F.O.C.U.S. Foundation, a nonprofit children's service charity established by Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman Rob Burnett. The evening's fight card featured bouts in various weight classes, but only one in a separate gender. The fight between IBF Women's Lightweight World Champion Isra Girgrah and challenger Melinda Robinson, not surprisingly, also seemed to generate the most interest.

Meghan Cornwall and Andrew Carlson swept through the county and regionals like a wave this season and powered their way into the state singles tennis finals.Annapolis' Cornwall again knew what to do in the always-intense finals, winning her third straight state girls singles title and 89th consecutive match for a fantastic 110-2 final career record.Arundel's Carlson ran into a force named Derrick Nguyen of Quince Orchard in the finals and had to settle for second place in the state boys singles, ending his celebrated high school career with a rare loss and a final record of 82-6.

New York-- --Women blessed with the gift of gams will be pleased with what's showing up on the storied runways at Bryant Park this week. Halfway through the eight-day extravaganza that is Fashion Week -- the biannual showcase of the most acclaimed designers' new collections -- several trends and continuation of trends have surfaced. One of the biggest seems to be showing a lot of leg. On runway after runway, models were decked out in teensy thigh-skimming creations, from baby bubble dresses and short shorts to jumper-style one pieces and miniskirts.

Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke has been so preoccupied trying to keep a team out of Baltimore that he hasn't seemed to notice that he has virtually lost his own team.Despite Cooke's prediction of a 9-7 record, the team that now plays at RFK Stadium has started 1-6 for the second straight year and is a pale imitation of the old Redskins.The old Redskins were a team put together by Bobby Beathard, a team running Joe Gibbs' one-back offense, a team with a quarterback who gained experience on the injured reserve list instead of being thrown into the fray as a rookie, a team with a power running back, a team with a wily veteran defensive coordinator.

On the evening of July 13, 1991, on Waterview Road in South Baltimore, a Diamond Cab and a No. 28 MTA bus went bump in the night.As these things go, it wasn't much to talk about: The bus driver, David Smith, slowed to cross railroad tracks near Cherry Hill Road, at which time the cabbie, Willie McCullough, driving behind him, found his accelerator was jammed. So he slammed down hard on his brake and managed to stop his taxi just as it tapped the bus.In fact, Smith didn't even know his bus had been hit until McCullough signaled to him to stop.

Maryland-reared ballerina Amanda McKerrow was in D.C recently to dance the starring Snow Queen role on opening night of the Washington Ballet's "Nutcracker Suite."This was a sentimental return for McKerrow, who has been with American Ballet Theater in New York since 1983 and is a principal dancer. She was reunited with Simon Dow, now the ballet master at Washington Ballet, who was her partner in 1981 when she won the gold medal at the Moscow Ballet Competition.Also, her 11-year-old niece, Jenna McKerrow, had a part as one of the party children in Act 1. Jenna has been attending the Washington Ballet School since September.