They were the best little two-person act in town, Dodo Cheney and Billie Barr, each 89, a couple of troupers doing their shtick and loving every minute of it.
Their stage yesterday was Court 8 at the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club, where in the women's 90 final of the USTA National Women's Hardcourt Tennis Championships, Cheney for the 351st time won one of the gold balls that go to national champions. She defeated Barr 6-0, 6-2.
At one point, the players forgot whose turn it was to serve, but no matter. Their match concluding, Barr, Cheney's houseguest, joined her at her home just up the hill from the tournament site.
“Dodo and I enjoy doing these things together because we're both hams,” said Barr, of Wellington, Fla. “She enjoys an audience and I enjoy it and we always kind of ham it up a little. It pops out of us.”
Yesterday, Barr and Cheney were the only entrants in the 90s – they were eligible at 89 because their 90th birthdays are later this year. Barr said this was the 15th time she has opposed Cheney. Barr never has won.
“Clever, clever, clever,” she said of Cheney's approach to tennis. “She's just so sure, and she plays tennis as if it were chess.”
Cheney's game is not what it was in 1938, when as Dorothy Bundy she became the first American woman to capture the Australian Open, but her touch still is feathery on those drop shots she rains at her rivals.
The women's 50s title went to Kathy May Fritz of Rancho Santa Fe, who will be 50 in June.
A one-time WTA Tour player who was ranked as high as No. 8 in the world, Fritz rallied to overtake Tina Karwasky 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.
Karwasky, the women's tennis coach at Cal State/Los Angeles, was positioned to achieve a Grand Slam in this age group, having claimed national titles on clay, grass and indoors. But after Fritz had three set points escape her when she was serving at 5-4 in the first set, her hard, flat forehand wore down her rival.
Karwasky had a considerable consolation. Next year she is to be eligible for the 60s.
In this event's 60s final, No. 1 seed Charlene Hillebrand of San Pedro got past Cathy Anderson of Del Mar 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.
Toreros lose
A USD men's team that had battled into an NCAA Division I Regional for a fourth consecutive year had its season conclude at Pepperdine yesterday with a 4-0 loss to TCU.
Jerry Magee: (619) 293-1830; jerry.magee@uniontrib.com
