Breakers clash with rival Aviators for WTT title
The Orange County Breakers are the top seed for the World Team Tennis championship match, and they were honored in the league’s awards that were announced Friday.
Teymuraz Gabashvili and Andreja Klepac were named league Male and Female MVPs, while their teammates Ken Skupski and Yanina Wickmayer earned Rookie of the Year honors. Rick Leach was named Coach of the Year after guiding the Breakers to a spot in the WTT Finals for the third consecutive year.
Still, the Breakers need to win on the road to claim the title, never an easy task.
The Breakers will have to accomplish that task if they are to win their second league title in franchise history. They play at the rival San Diego Aviators for the title on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad. The match will air on ESPN3, with ESPN2 joining the live coverage at 9 p.m.
The Breakers and Aviators both finished the regular season with a 9-5 record, the Breakers earning the top-seed tiebreaker due to winning more games in the teams’ head-to- head matches. The teams split their four regular-season matches, each winning twice on their respective home courts.
However, the title match was scheduled for Carlsbad before the season began, so the Breakers will play on the road in the final.
The match is a rematch of last year’s title match, which was won by San Diego, 25-14. But the Breakers’ lineup is totally new from last year’s team.
The Breakers have won just one league title in team history, in 2004.
“[San Diego is] a great team,” Breakers coach Rick Leach said. “It’s going to be very, very difficult to win in their home. But I think we have a chance if we play like [we did in Wednesday’s 25-13 win over Philadelphia to close the regular season]. I wish we were playing here, but we can’t control that.”
What Leach can control is setting the match’s order of play. The Breakers have typically led off their matches with women’s singles, featuring Wickmayer, followed by women’s doubles with Wickmayer and Klepac.
Gabashvili is now a two-time league MVP after winning it in 2015, when the franchise was known as the Austin Aces. He and Skupski also contribute for Orange County.
San Diego features Raven Klaasen, the 2016 WTT Finals MVP. He is joined by fellow championship team member Darija Jurak, as well as his regular ATP World Tour doubles partner Rajeev Ram and Great Britain’s Naomi Broady.
Twitter: @mjszabo
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