She's Not a Kid Any More

She is the U.S. Open's youngest tennis champion ever

Tracy Austin was a day late starting classes last week for her junior year at Rolling Hills High School outside Los Angeles. She had, nonetheless, been doing her homework for part of her academic program, "Work Experience." The Work: playing tennis on the professional tournament circuit. The Experience: winning the United States Open Tennis Championships to become at 16, the youngest American champion in the history of the sport.

With metronomic precision, Austin beat Chris Evert-Lloyd, 24, at her own game, hammering faultlessly from the baseline for a straight-set win, 6-4, 6-3. When Evert-Lloyd drove her final forehand into the net at match point, Austin danced a delighted girlish jig, then rushed up to receive a maternal pat on the head from her opponent. Thus did the onetime queen of women's tennis pay homage to the now and future champion.

It was a fitting gesture for a precocious career. Tracy started dragging a sawed-off tennis racquet to the courts when she was three years old, and by ten had won the national twelve-year-old championships. At 14, she became the youngest player ever invited to compete at Wimbledon. Tracy captivated the crowd with her pigtails and braces, but was overpowered in the early rounds. The following year she played as an amateur in occasional women's tour events.

Shortly before turning 16 last December, Austin started to compete as a professional. A grown-up 5 ft. 4 in., 112 Ibs., she quickly established herself as a rising force, whining the first three tournaments she entered. In May, Austin broke Evert-Lloyd's 125-match winning streak on clay courts at the Italian Open and climbed to the semifinals at Wimbledon with a stirring win over Billie Jean King. As the summer progressed, the youngster steadily grew "match-tough," honing her game physically and acquiring the mental resilience to stand up to relentless attack from her opponents. She reached the finals in the U.S. Championships by beating two-tune Wimbledon Champ Martina Navratilova, 22, then forced error after error from the usually unflappable Evert-Lloyd in the finals. After her victory, Tracy said matter-of-factly: "I was always doing things younger, and it hasn't hurt me so far."

Austin is the most prodigious of a young crop of tennis stars who are doing things younger. The men's winner at the U.S. Open was John McEnroe, at 20 the youngest champion since Pancho Gonzalez won the tournament in 1948 at 20. Andrea Jaeger, 14, an early-round Austin opponent, referred to Tracy as "an older woman." The tennis boom, with its allure of big prize money and international superstardom, has drawn thousands of youngsters into the game who might, in an earlier era, have focused on other sports. Coach Harry Hopman, the force behind the Australian tennis juggernaut in the '50s and '60s, notes: "Normally with a tennis player, youth needs quite a lot of experience before it can win." Players now start younger and receive competitive experience that just a generation ago could have been found only at the highest levels of the sport.

Carefully sheltered by her mother Jeanne, who works at a nearby tennis club, and her father George, a nuclear physicist, Tracy typically alternates a week on the tennis tour with two weeks of schoolwork and practice. That regimen allows for plenty of tournament play and an A average as well. "I just want my time at home to be normal," she says. Tracy has earned well in excess of $300,000 in the past year, so her $1-a-week allowance has been suspended. But she still must ask her mother for clothes money. Her older sister and two older brothers were serious tennis competitors; a third, John, 22, plays on the men's tour. "I'm the baby and it's helped my parents Tracy says. "If they made any mistakes with the others, they didn't with me. Mom has watched all my lessons." So few mistakes were made that the youngest Austin has become the family's first big-time winner. Says Jeanne Austin: "People come up to John on the tour and say, 'We don't want your autograph, but could you forge Tracy's?' "

Chris Evert-Lloyd recalls her days as a teen tennis sensation and the difficult years that followed, and predicts some problems for young Tracy. Says Evert-Lloyd: "She's protected from the pressures now by her family. But pretty soon the girls will be gunning for her. The crowds may be cheering her opponent because she's the favorite to win. This may be the best time of her life as far as her tennis career goes."

For now, Austin is enjoying her moment at the top. "I don't think the full impact has hit me yet." she says. "With school starting, I haven't had a chance to think much about it." But her neighbors have. A billboard down the street from the Austins' white brick ranch house in Rolling Hills proclaims SECOND ANNUAL TRACY AUSTIN PRO-CELEBRITY TOURNAMENT. With a champion of 16 in residence, there should be many more to come.

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