Housman Goes to Heart of the Matter With Senior Tennis Title

SAN DIEGO — Please forgive Leland Housman for an occasional concentration lapse or an extra long break between changeovers. It’s not that Housman has a flippant attitude toward tennis, it’s just that he has more important things on his mind.

You see, Housman is a prominent heart surgeon in San Diego County and every now and then tennis takes a back seat to saving someone’s life.

But Sunday, the beepers kept quiet long enough for Housman to put away Jack Metalsky, 6-2, 6-3, in the final of the Senior Grand Prix Tennis Tournament at the Rancho Bernardo Inn.

Housman, competing in the men’s 45 division, used powerful serves and forehands to put away Metalsky in just under two hours.

“My biggest problem is concentration, but today it was there,” Housman said.

Friday, though, was a different story.

Housman performed quadruple-bypass surgery at 7 a.m., played the quarterfinal match at noon and was back at Mercy Hospital, where he is the chief of cardiac surgery. That afternoon he performed a double bypass.

You can understand if Housman feels a little alienated from the tennis crowd sometimes.

“I’m doing all that, while everybody else is checking into the hotel and waiting to see when their next match is being played,” he said.

Somehow, Housman kept his body and mind in shape enough to win seven tournaments this year, which earned him the No. 1 seeding in the Senior Grand Prix tournament. Housman’s only loss this year came in the La Jolla tournament to Bob Duessler.

“This was by far the toughest tournament of the year,” said Housman, who reached the final here in ’87 and the semifinals in ’88. “There are no slouches in this thing. You’re competing against the best in Southern California, not just in San Diego.”

Although he abandoned the sport he played in high school and college--at the University of Texas El Paso--for 15 years, Housman is now able to play almost every day.

“I’ve got a tennis court at my house and I’m just five minutes from the hospital,” he said. “Tennis is my out. It’s the only way I can relax and get my exercise at the same time.”

Housman said he would never compare the gratification of winning a tennis match to completing heart surgery, but he did say the two are not independent of each other.

“The cross-discipline is very important,” Housman said. “The only difference is, (tennis) is just a game.”

And when Housman loses a game, what is his philosophy?

“I go by what Boris Becker said after he lost at Wimbledon this year: ‘Nobody got hurt, nobody died, I just lost a tennis match.’ ”

In other finals, Richard Raverby of Encinitas defeated Bob Robles of Mission Viejo, 6-3, 6-3, to win the men’s 35s and Christine Putnam of Escondido outlasted Debbie McCormick of Huntington Beach, 5-7, 6-1, 7-6, to win the women’s 35s.