Play Tennis

Sports enthusiasts these days are so occupied with the local NFL expansion effort and the Orioles' quest for free agents that it's easy to overlook Baltimore's Pat Koger Thompson, who is doing big things in her own sport.Thompson's game is tennis. She doesn't play it competitively any longer. She doesn't coach it.She describes herself as a tennis activist/educator. What she does -- organize it and bring minorities into the sport -- will have a greater impact than the efforts of most who do swing a racket.

A LITTLE girl who wanted to play tennis is still stuck in Dennis Cochran's mind. With her mother, she stood outside a fence, watching Cochran play one day a couple of years ago. When the Columbia Association pro asked if he could help, the mother said her daughter really wanted to play tennis. "I asked if she had a racket, and immediately I knew I'd asked the wrong question," Cochran said. "She looked down and said no. So I said, 'Hey, I've got a lot of rackets. Why don't you come see me?

NEW YORK -- The crowd is with her now, instead of against her. When her nerves are raw, when her serve cracks under presure, they scream her name.It wasn't always this way for Martina Navratilova at Louis Armstrong Stadium. But she's 34 years old, now, and Chris Evert is retired and she is the familiar face in a game overrun with teen-agers.So there she was yesterday in the semifinals of the U.S. Open, trying to dodge every peril her psyche and 22-year-old Steffi Graf could throw her way. Every time she hit a winner the crowd screamed, and when it was over, after Navratilova had somehow put together a 7-6 (7-2)

Their weapons of choice are tennis rackets, not guns. They're sportsmen, not soldiers. And they're angry and scared and even a little confused.They want to be at the U.S. Open, but they also want to be in Yugoslavia. They play for money in the United States and Europe and Asia. But back home, others are playing for greater stakes in a percolating civil war.Excuse Goran Ivanisevic and Goran Prpic for bringing politics and passion to the U.S. Open yesterday. They are Croatians who by the quirk of a draw were placed on the same back court in Flushing Meadow while thousands of miles away their homeland in Yugoslavia was under siege.

NEW YORK -- Sixteen wasn't so sweet for Jennifer Capriati, after all.She lost 30 pounds, gained an Olympic gold medal and signed another multimillion dollar endorsement contract.But she didn't win a Grand Slam title.Yesterday, the "Dream Teen" of tennis was taken out in the third round of the U.S. Open by a 27-year-old named Patricia Hy.Final score: 7-5, 6-4."Well, I had a pretty good summer," Capriati said. "I guess, stuff happens."It certainly does at the Open.After a day of rain, they served up so many matches to complete the men's second round yesterday that you could walk around the National Tennis Center and find superstars playing in out-of-the-way places.

NEW YORK - She came. She played. And she was conquered. But Martina Naravatilova, 43, still can hold an audience. She packed each stadium she played during her women's doubles and mixed doubles matches at the U.S. Open and said the crowd's appreciation surprised her. "I mean, what I'm getting from the crowd I never got in my life, even the last couple years on the tour," she said, after she and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario lost their third-round match to...

WASHINGTON -- Petr Korda is a wisp of a man. At 6 feet 3 and 160 pounds, he often looks overmatched on the tennis court.But then Korda unleashes those devastating passing shots, that leave stronger opponents stranded in their footsteps.Or, his humorous side breaks out and he startles them by juggling tennis balls soccer style on his knees and feet -- just to break the tension.A year ago, Petr Korda was ranked No. 69 in the world of tennis. Today, he is No. 5 and the top seed here at the NationsBank Classic.

NEW YORK -- She was the "Chubby Czech" when she arrived here from Czechoslovakia, a plump 18-year-old with promise.But the ugly duckling turned into Martina Navratilova, the greatest player the women's tennis tour ever has seen. And tonight, at Madison Square Garden, she will begin play in the Virginia Slims Championships, the last singles tournament of her professional career."Getting old is very annoying," said Navratilova, 38. "But I have been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have careers, so I am ready to retire."

WASHINGTON -- The little boy standing beside the players' entrance here at the H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center, looked up at the tall blond man who was about to walk in the door."

HERE ARE some things I did not do this summer: Straighten closets, write my play, organize my desk, turn my mattress, clean out the toy box/garage/basement/attic. I did not go through my linens, figure out how to use a bookmark on the Web, plant new perennials or play tennis. I didn't send my drapes to the cleaner, I didn't get my winter coats cleaned and mended, I still haven't gone through last year's handouts from the school. Frankly, I've done darn near nothing. I did not enrich, enhance, advance, promote or otherwise improve my children.