DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709261029
SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL WHITE, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   66 lines

BEACH TEAMS ``BACK 4 MORE'' OF THE BIG TIME MEN'S, WOMEN'S 5.0 SQUADS ARE OFF TO THE USTA NATIONALS THIS WEEKEND IN NEW YORK.

They began as ``Good on Paper,'' then proved that you can't always believe what you read.

This left them with a ``Lot 2 Prove,'' and they responded by finishing in the top five in the nation.

The question now is, can the Virginia Beach men's 5.0 tennis team do even better now that they're ``Back 4 More''?

We'll find out this weekend, when the United States Tennis Association National League Championships unfold on the same courts where Patrick Rafter and Martina Hingis were crowned U.S. Open champions two weeks ago.

Both Back 4 More and Rak Attack, the Virginia Beach-based women's 5.0 team, won Mid-Atlantic regional tournaments and will join the champions of the USTA's 16 other sectional associations at the nationals, to be held at the U.S. National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y. The 5.0 level - beginners are 2.0 players; world-class pros rate at 7.0 - is the highest in a USTA League Tennis Program that involves nearly 250,000 people nationwide.

``We're just weekend athletes, but this gives us something important,'' said Roy Beskin, team spokesman and the man behind Back 4 More's annual name changes. ``For one weekend, we get to go to the U.S. Open, play on the same courts Pete Sampras played on and pretend we're real tennis players.''

Beskin's no Sampras, but he's no slouch, either, having been a former No. 1 player at Virginia Tech. The same can be said for Back 4 More teammates Scott Pachter (a former No. 2 player at the University of Louisville), Old Dominion University tennis director Darryl Cummings, Andy Hinkle and Scott Willett (formerly the top man at Virginia Wesleyan).

And then there's Billy Foster, whose game was basketball during his days at ODU in the late '70s.

``We told him back then if he'd play basketball with us, we'd teach him to play tennis,'' Beskin said. ``Now he can play with any of us.''

Rak Attack - the name was plucked from a children's racket cover - features former William and Mary star Chris Mast, Vanderbilt graduate Bekki Jucksch, Maury Tyrrell, Beverly Bryant and Karen Johnson.

This marks the second time in three years Rak Attack will compete for the national title. The team didn't place in the 1995 tournament in New Orleans. According to Mast, however, that first appearance was for show. This time, they expect to give it a better go.

``Before, we were just happy to get there,'' she said. ``This time, we'll be a little better prepared.''

Although the USTA classifies this as recreational tennis, both local teams take the competition very seriously. Jucksch returned to action a few weeks after giving birth to a baby girl. And Beskin took a cortisone shot earlier this week to alleviate pain in his ailing right shoulder. ``He took a dart for the team,'' Pachter said.

Handicapping such an event is virtually impossible because all players are supposed to be at the same skill level. But both teams believe the well-seasoned nature of their lineups could prove beneficial in a tournament where teams can have players as young as 19.

Mast, a 30-year tennis veteran, said Rak Attack is a collection of ``thirtysomethings and fortysomethings.'' And Beskin said Back 4 More players have all been playing for at least 20 years.

``Some teams will probably have better players, but we might have more experience than the others,'' Beskin said. ``That's where we might have the edge.''

If that's enough of an edge, they'll probably be calling themselves Back 2 Back next time around.

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