25 Years Ago in Bonac Sports: 09.20.18

September 2, 1993

“Another day in the Hamptons,” Don Brosseau, the fabled Huggy Bear tennis tournament’s director, said with a mock sigh, as, on a brick-lined sunken court separated from Mecox Bay by a manicured lawn, Ken Rosewall, the tennis Hall of Famer, and a young fellow Aussie, Mark Kratzmann, battled Byron Talbot and Peter Maller in the final as 500 invited guests of the Forstmann family looked delightedly on.

The frequent applause that greeted points won Sunday by the 58-year-old Rosewall and the 27-year-old Kratzmann, one of the top doubles players on the world circuit, did not spring solely from sentiment, for a lot of money rides on Huggy Bears outcomes.

This year’s by-invitation-only tourney, played on estates owned by the Forstmann family in Water Mill and Southampton, offered $499,000 in prize money, with professionals and their amateur or ex-pro partners sharing handsome sums paid out to winners in the 32-team draw from the round of 16 on.

The final produced $120,000 for the winners and $60,000 for the runners-up. The winners of the consolation draw, made up of first-round losers, were Todd Witsken and Jim Agate, who shared $30,000. The runners-up, Scott Davis and Glenn Petrovic, “the ultimate Huggy Bears money warrior,” according to Brosseau, shared $15,000.

. . . During the awards ceremonies that followed Rosewall and Kratzmann’s exciting 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 win, Brosseau announced that through hefty contributions exacted by the Forstmanns from the invitees, and through donations by team owners, “more than $600,000 had been raised for the tournament’s beneficiaries, Cities in Schools, a nationwide dropout prevention effort headed by Bill Milliken, and Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for severely disabled youngsters.

The East Hampton Tennis Club’s championships are nearing an end as play moves into the final rounds. Patti Ferrin won the women’s singles title Saturday, for the 11th time, defeating Bonnie Bach 6-0, 6-1. Ferrin, who with her husband, Ken, manufactures kitchen gadgets under the name of East Hampton Industries, has enjoyed a pretty-much unblemished reign as the East Hampton Tennis Club’s women’s singles champion. Sandy Fleischman Richmond, who played number-one for the University of North Carolina a decade ago, “beat me when she was 16,” said Ferrin.

The Ferrins are ardently sportive. Besides tennis, they are serious cyclists and skiers. . . . “We started biking when Ken tore his rotator cuff and couldn’t play tennis,” she said, adding that “part of my therapy when I damaged a ligament in my knee was biking. Biking also helps keep us in shape for skiing, which demands that you be in shape.”

The Ferrins are about to embark on a monthlong bike trip across Italy, from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean. In the winter, they helicopter-ski in Canada.

Tony Hitchcock and Jean Lindgren, who oversee the Hampton Classic Horse Show, heaved a sigh of relief yesterday when it became clear that Hurricane Emily would not hit eastern Long Island, as had been feared.

“You can bet we were grateful,” said Hitchcock, adding that one of the Classic’s course designers, Jose Gamarra, a native of La Paz, Bolivia, was taking the credit, “and, for all I know, he deserves it. Bolivians apparently have a custom that if you float eggs a certain way in water, you can ward off storms. Jose — he’s known as Pepe — floated eggs in our water jug, and, as you see, the storm went out to sea.”