SENIOR TENNIS : PURCELL NARROWLY DEFEATS MAYER IN SENIORS OPENER.Byline: Rizza Yap Daily News Staff WriterEven after 17 years of professional tennis, Mel Purcell Mel Purcell (born July 18 1959, in Joplin, Missouri, U.S.A.) is a former World No. 17 tennis player in the ATP tennis rankings. He is the head coach of the Murray State University men's tennis team. says he gets nervous during a match point. There were plenty of close calls Thursday night, but Purcell looked unaffected as he slid his way around the court to a 6-4, 6-4 win over Gene Mayer Gene Mayer (born April 11, 1956 in Flushing, New York) is a former tennis player from the United States who won fourteen singles titles during his career. The righthander Mayer reached his highest ranking on the ATP Tour on October 6, 1980, when he reached the rank of number to make the quarterfinals of the Coopers and Lybrand Champions tennis tournament at Riviera Country Club The Riviera Country Club is a country club with a championship golf course. It is located in Pacific Palisades, California, within the city limits of Los Angeles, California. The country club opened in 1926, with George C. Thomas, Jr. as the course architect. . The win means another step closer to the Nuveen Masters final for the former Agoura High School Agoura High School is a four-year high school, freshman-senior, in Agoura Hills, California, United States. It is the largest high school in the Las Virgenes Unified School District, with an enrollment of approximately 2,400 students. student of four months. It also produced a higher level of confidence. ``I always knew before that I can play with these guys, but it takes a couple of wins to believe it,'' he said. The Purcell-Mayer match opened the fifth annual 12-man, five-day tournament for men age 35 and over. Jimmy Connors James Scott "Jimmy" Connors (born September 2, 1952 in East St. Louis, Illinois) is a former World Number 1 American tennis champion who was the top player for 160 consecutive weeks from July of 1974 to August of 1977. and Andres Gomez, last year's finalists, are headlining the $150,000 tournament. Thursday's opening match produced a tight battle in the first set, with Purcell establishing a one-game lead and Mayer playing catchup catch·up n. Variant of ketchup. to tie on every other game - until Purcell managed to pull away in the final two games. Mayer, ranked No. 3 in the Nuveen Masters, took the first two games of the second set and kept the advantage until Purcell rallied with two aces in the seventh game and etched out Mayer's 4-2 lead for good. Purcell - who attended Agoura and University high schools for some months before moving back to his native South to graduate - said playing in Los Angeles was a treat. ``I love it out here,'' said the Kentucky resident, who is in a four-way tie for fifth place in the Nuveen Masters. ``I wish I would have stayed here, but I'm just a Southern boy,'' Purcell plays local favorite John Lloyd (British-born but a resident of Pacific Palisades Palisades, cliffs along the west bank of the Hudson River, NE N.J. and SE N.Y., extending from N of Jersey City, N.J., to the vicinity of Piermont, N.Y., with a general altitude of from 350 ft to 550 ft (107–168 m). ) in the quarterfinals tonight. In a late match Thursday, Mensour Bahrami and Gomez combined for a 6-2, 7-6 (7-3) doubles win over Guillermo Vilas and Ron Hightower. |
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