Tennis Tournaments

Gussie Moran had legs that went on forever. She walked, the late designer Ted Tinling said, as if she were tiptoeing across tennis balls. She was a California girl with a California tan. She was a jock, she was beautiful, it was 1949 and Gussie Moran showed her lace panties at Wimbledon. "Gussie was," says Jack Kramer, part of Los Angeles tennis royalty, "the Anna Kournikova of her time. Gussie was a beautiful woman with a beautiful body.

As the new Court 2 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden nears completion so does the newest dining option at California's largest tennis venue. The New York sushi restaurant Nobu will have an outlet near the new court, which holds one of only two ATP or WTA-level tournaments in the state. The new stadium court will have 8,000 seats and tickets have  gone on sale for the 2014 BNP Paribas Open. To find out more about the new court and restaurant, as well as ticket packages, go to http://www.bnpparibasopen.com/ . In the last three years, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have won the men's titles and Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka and Caroline Wozniacki the women's titles.

WHO: Top amateur tennis players. WHAT: The Ojai Valley tennis tournament, featuring competition in high school, junior college, college, juniors and open divisions. WHEN: Today through Sunday, starting at 8 a.m. WHERE: Junior and high school competition will be at Thacher School (5025 Thacher Rd.) and other sites around Ojai; junior college men play at Ventura College (4667 Telegraph Rd.), Buena High School (5670 Telegraph Rd. in Ventura) and Camino Real Park (corner of Dean Dr. and Varsity St.

Who says art and sports don't mix? On Saturday afternoon, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture will host an invitational tennis tournament at which art world and entertainment figures will compete on the newly completed Goldstein Court of the Sheats/Goldstein Residence in Beverly Crest near Beverly Hills. The event, a benefit for the MAK Center, also includes cocktails at sunset, BBQ from Baby Blues and guided tours of the historic 1963 home, designed by architect John Lautner, and its James Turrell Skyspace, "Above Horizon.

It was 1933 when Eleanor Harbula first started playing tennis. She was 13. Now, 57 years later, she still plays an impressive game. Through this weekend, Harbula, 70, is one of 180 seniors over 65 vying for the top slot at a national U.S. Tennis Assn. tournament held at Leisure World, Laguna Hills. "It was the toughest match. It was so hot out there," Harbula said after winning a three-hour match in 82-degree heat earlier this week.

For the third day in a row, rain caused the postponement of matches in the Virginia Slims of Palm Springs tennis tournament, which may be lucky to have its final on Monday. Play was supposed to have begun at 9 a.m. Friday, but was instead called off altogether at 4 p.m. without a ball having been hit. Earlier Friday, the doubles portion of the tournament was canceled.

With the force of a backhand down the line, Los Angeles' professional tennis tournament got the stinging news it expected Friday morning. In the 1990 tour of the Assn. of Tennis Professionals, the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament will be downgraded to an open-week event. Top-10 players are required to play in 11 Championship Series tournaments, the highest level. Top-10 players need not play in open-week events. That much was expected.

Top-seeded Bob Bryan of Stanford struggled to defeat Michael Jessup of Pepperdine, 6-4, 6-7, 6-4, on Saturday in the rain-delayed second round of the National Collegiate Tennis Classic at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks. The weekend tournament offers an early season glimpse at eight of the top men's and women's college teams in the nation. Heavy rain postponed matches on Friday, but the weather stayed dry enough Saturday to allow for first- and second-round play.

Two-time U.S. Open tennis champion Tracy Austin will compete against local tennis players today to help the South Bay Children's Health Center, which expects to raise about $50,000 to treat children from low-income families. The Tracy Austin Charity Tennis Tournament has raised about $1 million for the center since it started 19 years ago.

Top-seeded Stefan Edberg drew Ramesh Krishnan of India for his first-round match in the $225,000 Volvo Tennis/Los Angeles tournament beginning Monday at UCLA. Pete Sampras, seeded No. 2, will play Gilad Bloom of Israel in his first-round match, which will probably be scheduled for Tuesday night, along with Edberg-Krishnan.

The Women's Tennis Assn. tournament that has been played in Carlsbad since 1984 will move to in Tokyo in 2014, the WTA confirmed Thursday. The move was first reported by Tennisreporters.com. The WTA tournament that is currently at Stanford will take the Carlsbad event's spot on the calendar and in 2014 will begin on July 28. The Tokyo event will be held in September, after the U.S. Open. Octagon owns the Carlsbad tournament and will run it out of Tokyo. Chicago had made a pitch for the event also.

The 2014 BNP Paribas Open, the largest combined ATP and WTA combined two-week event, will be held March 3-16 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden . ESPN has announced it has renewed its television contract with the tournament through 2020, tournament director Steve Simon said. The 2014 edition of the tournament will once again culminate on ESPN2 on March 14, ESPNEWS on March 15, and both singles finals will air live back-to-back on ESPN2 on March 16. Beginning in 2015, coverage of the final weekend of the tournament will be on ESPN2 on Friday and on ABC on Saturday and Sunday.

Time. It's a topic that doesn't much affect Roger Federer. The owner of 17 major titles and the defending champion of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells never wastes time. He certainly didn't on Monday, taking only 61 minutes to defeat Ivan Dodig of Croatia, 6-3, 6-1, in the third round at Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Federer doesn't fiddle with his clothing or walk in dizzying circles after a tense point. Whether he hits a swift winning shot after a short rally or mishits a losing shot after running and running during a long point, Federer just moves ahead.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott was scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Thursday to join up with the UCLA basketball team for its series of exhibition games. Scott has been working with the Federation of University Sports of China to lay the groundwork for the Bruins' trip through Beijing and Shanghai. "This is the first step in what I hope will be a long journey of competition and exchange between the Pac-12 and China," he said earlier this week. The basketball-crazy nation could be fertile ground for a conference that has just launched its own sports network.

PARIS -- The woman in black would not be denied. Both victory and a place in the history books lay at the end of her racquet, which she wielded like a deadly weapon. With unerring aim, Maria Sharapova of Russia won the French Open on Saturday, capturing her first title on the crushed red clay and picking up the only major trophy lacking in her collection. Sharapova, 25, defeated Italy's Sara Errani, 6-3, 6-2, in a one-sided match on a blustery Paris afternoon. The Russian's fourth major title made her the sixth female tennis player in the Open era to achieve a career Grand Slam, and she joins Serena Williams as the only other active woman currently on tour who can make the same boast.

The aggressive athlete. The left-hander. The tactician. That's how Roger Federer describes the other three best men's tennis players in the world. Federer says Novak Djokovic, currently ranked No. 1 and winner of four of the last five majors, is the most athletic of his most avid competitors and the most aggressive. Rafael Nadal, ranked second in the world, is the left-hander with troublesome spin and relentless focus, according to Federer. Andy Murray, ranked No. 4, and still looking for a major title, impresses Federer with his defensive skills and thoughtful tennis.

Who slew Andre the giant? None other than Mikael Pernfors, who switched rackets three times, changed his shirt twice, had his ankle taped once and beat Andre Agassi when many thought he had zero chance. "I don't think anyone thought I was going to win," Pernfors said. Then everyone was wrong. Pernfors, a 25-year-old Swede who went to college at Athens, Ga.

The union of men's professional tennis players, which is forming its own tour in 1990, may relegate the Los Angeles tournament to minor status, which would virtually guarantee that none of the top-ranked players would compete in it. Such a move would result from a shake-up of tournaments that has been expected since the Assn. of Tennis Professionals announced at the U.S. Open that it would break away from the Pro Council and run its own international tour.

(seedings in parentheses; all times Pacific) ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM Beginning at 8 a.m.: David Nalbandian vs. Rafael Nadal (2); Andy Roddick (21) vs. Julien Benneteau; Maria Kirilenko (25) vs. Samantha Stosur (9). Beginning at 4 p.m.: Feliciano Lopez (25) vs. Andy Murray (4); Sabine Lisicki (22) vs. Vera Zvonareva (2). LOUIS ARMSTRONG STADIUM Beginning at 8 a.m.: Peng Shuai (13) vs. Flavia Pennetta (26); Juan Martin del Potro (18) vs. Gilles Simon (12)

MERCURY INSURANCE OPEN La Costa Resort and Spa, Carlsbad ( Seedings in parentheses ) Stadium Court Play begins at 10 a.m. Kimiko Date-Krumm vs. Gisela Dulko Rebecca Marino vs. Maria Kirilenko (11) Sabine Lisiki (12) vs. Greta Arn Elena Baltacha vs. Agnieszka Radwanska (3) Not before 7 p.m. Vera Zvonareva (1) vs. Jill Craybas Alexa Glatch vs. Andrea Petkovic (2)