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During the summer of 1981, I played a lot of recreational tennis at the Blythdale Public Courts in Mill Valley, in Marin County, California, and I became friends with George Zahorsky at the courts. George won the Northern California section of the Men's "A" amateur division over the next few months, but that's another vignette.**
Sometime shortly after we got to be friends, George
mentioned to me that a girl of 12 or 13 from nearby Tiburon, California,
hit her ground strokes harder than he did, and that the girl's father paid him
to rally with her from time to time. Her name was Elly Hakami. A
month or so later, George took me along -- to an inside court in Mill Valley,
or Larkspur or Strawberry or someplace near Mill Valley for a practice
session with Elly which George had scheduled with Mr. Hakami. When we got
there, George introduced me to Mr. Hakami and to Elly, and I just sat down with
Mr. Hakami and watched. Sure enough Elly hit the ball harder than George,
a lot harder (but she was a lot less consistent). In fact I'd never seen
a woman hit the ball that hard and keep it in the court.
My impression was that Elly was not only a phenomenon physically but was also
mentally mature way beyond her years. Mr. Hakami, an Iranian who spoke
with a strong accent, seemed understandably very protective of his young
daughter, but also seemed to be far less committed than Elly was to her
pursuing a professional tennis career. So Elly seemed to be dealing with
her father's reaction to my very presence at the practice session as well as
with George's consistent returns. I sensed that my presence might have
created an uncomfortable situation for both of them, the session not being
public like a tournament but not being completely private either. I also sensed that George may not have
explained to Mr. Hakami that the friend he was bringing to the practice session
was not a professional player or teaching pro.
In any case, after the session I bid goodbye to the Hakamis and never had an
opportunity to talk with Elly again. I followed her amateur career
distantly, because I moved away from Marin County in 1981. I may have seen her in an amateur tournament
or two in Marin in 1981 to 1982, or I may have just dreamed it. I know it
wasn't until the 1990's that I heard Elly had turned professional and achieved
a world-ranking in the 30's briefly, in 1986.
Now, I've literally forgotten the names of almost all the guys I ever watched
and played against in and around San Antonio in the middle 1950's, a few of
whom grew up to became successful professional players. I've forgotten because I was 13 and 14 years
old at the time. Whereas I was 39 in the summer of 1981, and I'll never forget my virtually
non-existent acquaintance with the extraordinary tennis brilliance of Elly
Hakami that summer.
Billie Jean King, by dbking at Flickr (2005)
** See my "Two Tales of Tennis Friends and Booze"
a Diary dated 06.02.009 here at OEN
*** I put up this piece in a slightly different form at WTA.Com in 2007. Pam Shriver complimented me on it, and told me that the year of Elly's participation and remarkable achievement in the ATP was 1988, and that in this year, Elly had defeated numerous higher ranked WTA players including Mary Joe Fernandez. Thank you, Pam Shriver.
