Orange County Breakers win again at home

The first eight points of the match Tuesday night couldn’t have gone any worse for Yanina Wickmayer and the Orange County Breakers.

Wickmayer lost all eight of them to Madison Brengle of the visiting Washington Kastles, four on her serve and four on Brengle’s serve. Six points in, Breakers coach Rick Leach called timeout to try to slow the Kastles’ momentum.

“She’s really tired,” Leach said of Wickmayer. “She’s never been involved with World Team Tennis, and you have to kind of save your energy. I think we practiced too hard the last few days. We’re going to back off on the practice Wednesday [morning].

Wickmayer quickly rebounded from the early two-game deficit, though she lost the set in a tiebreaker. As a team, though, the Breakers simply don’t lose at their home of Palisades Tennis Club.

One more win there on Wednesday night and the Breakers will be taking plenty of momentum into the World Team Tennis title match.

The 23-14 win over the Kastles was a big one for Orange County (8-5), which won its third straight match and improved to 6-0 at home this season. The Breakers can clinch the top seed in the WTT finals with a win Wednesday in the regular-season finale, when they play host to the Philadelphia Freedoms at 6:05 p.m.

The top two regular-season teams advance to the league’s title match, which is Saturday at 8 p.m. at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad.

“Tonight was a really tough match for us, because everybody’s tired at the end of the season,” Leach said. “They really dug deep to win this match. I think we’re in good shape … at least we control our own destiny if we win [Wednesday]. I feel better after tonight. We kind of knew we had to win our last three [matches], and we’ve got one more to go.

“It was a tough win. Any time you’re playing against the world’s fastest serve [in Sam Groth], it’s kind of scary. Teymuraz [Gabashvili] did great as our anchor, and it was a team effort. I like the way that our team is fighting.”

The Breakers may have been behind the Kastles after Wickmayer’s opening loss, but they came back strong. Wickmayer and Andreja Klepac, the top women’s doubles team in the league in terms of winning percentage, beat Brengle and Anastasia Rodionova, 5-1. And after the Breakers’ Gabashvili and Ken Skupski beat Groth and Robert Lindstedt by the same score in men’s doubles, Orange County had a 14-7 halftime advantage.

The hard-serving Groth was not happy about his first service game of the men’s doubles set. After his serve was broken, he broke his racket, stepping on it a couple of times.

Orange County was less flustered. The lead was more than enough, though Klepac and Skupski fell to Lindstadt and Rodionova, 5-4 (5-4 in the tiebreaker), in mixed doubles.

Gabashvili made sure he finished the match strong for the Breakers in men’s singles against Groth. He zoomed to a 3-0 lead before capturing the set, 5-2.

After Steve Johnson held his spot as the men’s singles anchor for the Breakers’ first four home matches, that spot now belongs to Gabashvili. But the 2015 World Team Tennis Male MVP said he’s not taking anything for granted.

“We’re not close to the championship,” Gabashvili said. “It’s still a huge step. We are close to making it to the finals, but finals is another story. I remember two years ago, when I played for the Austin Aces, we were killing everyone. We were No. 1 by far, and we lost in the finals badly.

“We will try to [clinch a finals berth Wednesday], that’s our goal. I hope we get in [the title match], then we have two days to get ready for it.”

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo